The Gods of Eden
by William Bramley
21
Funny Money
FEW TOPICS OCCUPY as many minds or stimulate as many
emotions as money. This is largely because money is an
overwhelming problem to a majority of people. One thing
which causes modern money to be a problem is inflation,
whether inflation is climbing at 3% annually or 300%. Inflation, of course, is the situation in which the costs of goods
and services steadily rise due to the ever-decreasing value
of money. This happens when the money supply becomes
larger in proportion to the supply of valuable goods and
services.
Money itself is not valuable; only the goods and services
that can be bought with it are. The wealth of any individual
or nation, therefore, is ultimately determined by what it
produces in terms of valuable products and services, not by
how much money it prints, distributes or holds. A nation
could actually survive without any currency at all as long
as it was otherwise productive.
The purpose of money is to facilitate the exchange of
goods and services. Money is therefore an extension of the barter system. Barter is the act of trading something
one possesses or does for something of someone else's.
Production and barter are the bases of all economy.
Coins and paper money were originally created to assist
in barter. They allowed people to barter without having to
carry around actual goods or immediately deliver a service.
This permitted individuals to trade more easily and to save
the profits of their labors for the future.
Paper money initially began as "promissory notes." A
promissory note is a written promise to pay a debt. A person
would write a note on a piece of paper promising the bearer
of the note a certain quantity of goods or services that the
notewriter could provide on demand. To illustrate, let us
look at the following fictitious example:
Let us pretend that a chicken farmer was in the village
market and wanted to trade for a basket of apples. He did
not have his chickens with him, so he might write a note
to the apple seller entitling the bearer of the note to come
up to the farm at any time to pick out two healthy chickens.
The chicken farmer would be able to walk away with his
basket of apples and it would be up to the apple grower
to visit the farm one day to redeem the note by getting his
two chickens. As long as people have faith in the chicken
farmer's ability to honor his notes, he will be able to use
them for barter.
Let us now pretend that as the day draws to a close, the
apple grower decides to have a look around the market. He
comes across the cloth merchant. The apple grower's wife
has been henpecking him for days to buy some of the new
silk that just arrived on a caravan from the Far East. The
apple grower's home life has been made miserable by her
unceasing demands and her denial of wifely comforts, so
he negotiates with the cloth merchant for some silk. The
cloth merchant, however, does not need any more apples,
so the apple grower, remembering that he has a note for
two chickens, asks the merchant if the merchant needs
poultry. The merchant says that he does, and the apple
grower gives him the note for two chickens in exchange
for silk. It is now up to the cloth merchant to trudge on
up to the chicken farm to redeem the note. The chickens themselves have never left the coop, yet they have changed
ownership twice in one day. This type of exchange was all
that paper money was initially created for; but do you see
the temptation that it can open up?
If the chicken farmer knows that some time will pass
before he must redeem his notes with actual chickens, or
that some if his notes will circulate forever and never come
in for redemption, he may be tempted to issue more notes
than he has in actual chickens, thinking that he will be able
to cover all the notes by the time they come back to him.
Temptation now gets the best of the chicken farmer.
The chicken farmer has a big family get-together coming
up and he wants to impress his in-laws for once by putting
on an opulent feast. Down to the market he goes where he
writes notes for chickens not yet hatched and stocks up
with an abundance of goods from other merchants. Several
things can now happen. The chicken farmer will get away
with it if he is always able to meet the demand for chickens
when his notes come in for redemption. Another thing that
may, and often will, occur is that he has so saturated the
marketplace with his chicken notes that most people just
do not want any more of them, so he must offer even more
hens for each trade to make people feel that it is worth their
while. He is now writing notes for two or three chickens in
exchange for items for which he previously only had to issue
single-chicken notes. As these chicken notes circulate, they
become less and less valuable because there are so many of
them. A vicious spiral ensues: the more notes the chicken
farmer issues, the less valuable they become, and the more
he has to issue in order to get what he wants. This is known
as inflation.
Now comes the worst part.
With more and more notes outstanding, an increasing
number of notes will start coming in for redemption. Soon
the farmer will see that his true wealth, which is his supply
of chickens, is becoming rapidly depleted even though only
a small portion of his outstanding notes have come back.
To preserve his chickens, he must decrease the value of his
notes by declaring that the outstanding notes are now only
good for half of what they say. This is called devaluation. Since the farmer may find it difficult to admit that he had
issued many more notes than he had chickens, he may try to
save his reputation by lying, such as by saying that a fierce
chicken plague had wiped out half of his flock. That will
probably not prevent him from becoming very unpopular.
Public faith in his notes will be destroyed. He will either
have to revert back to straight barter, or else he will need
to acquire someone else's notes in order to continue trading
in the market.
As we can see, paper notes, or money, are rooted in
actual commodities and are meant to be an expression that
the creator of the notes has something valuable to trade.
In contrast to notes are coins, which functioned somewhat
differently. Metals have always been considered valuable,
and so pieces of metal were convenient trading tools.
Metal pieces were imprinted with various designs, thereby
becoming coins, and their metallic purity was guaranteed
by the imprinter. Coin values were initially determined by
the quantity and purity of the metal contained within the
coins. Gold was a rare and popular metal, so coins made
from gold were more expensive and had a higher barter
value than, for instance, copper coins.
Metal coins became a popular tool of barter because they
were durable and quantities could be controlled. They did
create some problems, however. Realistically, people were
only trading pieces of metal for other goods. This created
a disproportionate emphasis on metals. The acquisition of
coins and coin metals became an obsession to a great many
people, and such obsessions tend to drain away energy
better spent producing other valuable goods and services.
The system also gave a disproportionate amount of power to
those who possessed large quantities of coined metals, even
though other commodities, such as food, are ultimately more
valuable. The person with the coin metals could immediately
acquire any good or service, but a farmer first had to go
through the intermediate step of exchanging his product for
a coin or coin metal before he could have the same spending
flexibility.
Coin metals merged with paper notes to create the foundation of our modern monetary system in the 1600's. Those who laid this foundation were reportedly the goldsmiths.
Goldsmiths usually owned the strongest safes and lockboxes
in town. For this reason, many people deposited their coin
metals with the smiths for safekeeping. The smiths issued
receipts to the depositors that promised to pay to the receipt
holders on demand those quantities of gold or silver shown
on the receipts. Every such receipt was actually a note which
could be circulated as money until a holder of the note went
back to the goldsmith to redeem it for the specified amount
of metal.
The goldsmiths made an important discovery. Under
normal circumstances, only about 10% to 20% of their
receipts ever came back for redemption at any given time.
The rest circulated in the community as money, and for
good reason. Paper was easier to carry than bulky coin
and people felt safer holding receipts in lieu of actual gold
and silver. The smiths realized that they could lend out the
unredeemed metals and charge interest, and thereby earn
money as lenders. In making such a loan, however, the
smith would try to convince the borrower to accept the
loan in the form of a receipt instead of actual metal. The
borrower could then circulate that note as money. As we can
see, the goldsmith has now created "money" (his receipts)
for double the actual quantity of metal he has in his safe:
first to the original depositor, and then to a borrower. The
goldsmith did not even own the metal in his safe, yet by
simply writing upon a piece of paper, someone now owes
him money up to the full value of the gold in his safe. The
smith could continue writing his notes as long as the notes
coming in for redemption did not exceed his actual deposits
of precious metals. Typically, a smith would issue notes four
to five times in excess of his actual supply of gold.
As profitable as this operation may have been, there were
some pitfalls. If too many of the goldsmith's notes came
back for redemption too rapidly, or the smith's borrowers were slow to repay, the smith would be wiped out.
The credibility of his notes would be destroyed. If the
smith ran his operation cautiously, however, he could
become quite wealthy without ever producing anything
of value. [parasites do not produce anything of value EVER, not then, not now! DC]
The injustice of this system is obvious. If for every sack
of gold the smith had on deposit people now owed him
the equivalent of four sacks, someone had to lose. As
public debt to the goldsmith increased, more and more true
wealth and resources were owed to him. Since the goldsmith
was not producing any true wealth or resources, but was
demanding an ever-increasing share of them because of his
paper notes, he easily became a parasite upon the economy.
The inevitable result was the enrichment of the careful
goldsmith-turned-banker at the cost of the impoverishment
of other people in the community. That impoverishment
was manifested either in the people's need to give up
things of value or in their need to toil longer to create
the wealth needed to repay the banker. If the goldsmith
was not careful and his monetary bubble burst, the people
around him suffered anyway due to the disruption caused
by the collapse of his bank and the loss of the value of his
notes still in circulation.
Such was the birth of modern banking. Many people
feel that it is an inherently dishonest system. It is. It is
also socially and economically destabilizing, yet all of the
world's major monetary and banking systems today operate
on a close variation of the system I just described.
By the 17th century, the Medici banking house of Italy
had come up with the idea of using gold as the commodity
upon which to base all paper currency. Gold was touted
as the perfect basis for paper notes because of the scarcity
and desirability of gold. This was the beginning of the
"gold standard" in which all other goods and services are
valued in relation to gold (and sometimes silver). The gold
standard was certainly a terrific idea for those people who
owned plenty of gold and silver, but it created an artificial
reliance on a commodity that is not nearly as useful as
many other products. To base an entire monetary system
on a single commodity is better than basing it upon no
commodities at all, but even under a gold standard paper
notes will far exceed the metals used to back the notes. The
best solution is to root a money supply firmly in a nation's
entire valuable output so that the money acts as an accurate
reflection of that output.
Once the gold standard was created, paper notes were
thought to be "as good as gold" because people could
redeem the notes for actual gold. This created a false
sense of security. As more and more gold notes entered
the market, they gradually became worth less and less,
resulting in a steady inflation. The gold owners/bankers
had to keep issuing a constant stream of notes because that
is how they earned their profits. As long as the bankers
planned carefully and the people retained faith in the notes,
the note writers could stay ahead of the inevitable inflation
they created and make an enormous profit from it. If, on the
other hand, they issued an overabundance and too many of
their notes came back for redemption, they could, as a last
resort, devalue the notes to save their gold. In this fashion,
inflatable paper money, even under a gold standard, became
a source of wealth and power to those entitled to create the
money. It also generated indebtedness on an enormous scale
because most of the "created-out-of-nothing" gold notes
were released into the community as loans repayable to
the bankers. If people did not borrow from the bankers,
little new money would enter the market and the economy
would slow down.
This method of creating money clearly destroyed the
true purpose of money: to represent the existence of actual tradable commodities. Inflatable paper money allows a
handful of people to absorb and manipulate a great deal
of true wealth, which are the valuable goods and services
people produce, simply through the act of printing paper
and then slowly destroying the value of that paper with
inflation. It causes money to become its own commodity
which can be manipulated on its own terms, usually to
the detriment of the production-and-barter system. Money
was meant to assist that system, not to dominate and control it.
The inflatable paper money system described above was
the new "science" of money being installed by Brotherhood
revolutionaries. An early version of the system was established in Holland in 1609. That was the year in which Dutch
and Spanish forces signed a truce suspending the hostilities
of the Eighty Years War. The truce marked the birth of the independent Dutch Republic and the founding of the Bank
of Amsterdam in the same year.
The privately-owned Bank of Amsterdam operated on the
inflatable paper money system described above. It was run
by a group of financiers who pooled some of their precious
metals to form the asset base of the Bank. By prior agreement with the new Dutch government, the Bank helped
Dutch forces resume the wars against Spain by issuing notes
four times in excess of the Bank's asset base. The Dutch
magistrates were then able to draw on three quarters of
the "created-out-of-nothing" money to finance the conflict.
This reveals the primary reason why the inflatable paper
money system was created: it enables nations to fight and
prolong their wars. It also makes the human struggle for
physical existence in a modern economy more difficult due
to the massive debt and parasitic absorption of wealth that
the system causes. Furthermore, steady inflation reduces the
value of people's money so that their accumulated wealth
is gradually eroded. The Custodial aims expressed in the
Garden of Eden and Tower of Babel stories were greatly
furthered by the new paper money system.
The initial success of the Bank of Amsterdam encouraged
similar banking arrangements in other nations. The most
notable offspring was the Bank of England, founded in
1694. The Bank of England established the pattern for our
modern-day central banks by refining the inflatable paper
money system of Holland. The Bank of England system
was subsequently spread from nation to nation, often on
the backs of revolutions led by prominent Brotherhood
network members. The worldwide reformation announced
in the Fama Fraternitis was well underway by the end of
the 17th century, and the "new money" was a big part of
it, as we shall see more of later
22
Marching Saints
ONE OF THE most important leaders of the Reformation was
John Calvin. Calvin was only ten years old when Luther
broke from the Catholic Church, but as an adult, Calvin
became one of Protestantism's most zealous advocates.
Calvin published his first religious tract in 1536 in
Basel, Switzerland—a city by the Swiss-German border.
Calvin spent his adult life writing and teaching his
own unique interpretations of Protestant doctrine. The
result was the creation of a Protestant denomination
named after him, "Calvinism," which was headquartered
in Geneva.
Calvin continued in the mystical vein of Martin Luther.
As we recall, Luther said that spiritual salvation was not
something that a human being could achieve through his
or her own labors. Instead, salvation required an act of
belief. The same idea was promulgated by Calvin, but
with a harsher twist. According' to Calvin's doctrine, not
even an act of faith or belief would ensure a person's
spiritual survival. Calvin proclaimed instead that a person's spiritual salvation, or lack of it, was already predetermined
before birth by God. Not only had God decided in advance
who would achieve spiritual salvation and who would
not, but there was absolutely nothing a person could do
about God's decision. This unhappy doctrine is known as
"predestination." Calvin's predestination teachings offered
people little comfort because they stressed that most human
beings were spiritually condemned. Those humans favored
by God before birth were known as the "Elect." The Elect
were few in number and could do nothing to share their
good fortune with others. The Elect had only one real duty
on Earth, proclaimed Calvin, and that was to suppress the
sin of others as a service to "God." Calvin, of course, was
one of the Elect.
One might ask: why would "God" condemn nearly every
soul before birth and then continue to punish them after birth?
It seems rather cruel. According to Calvin, the human race
was still being punished for the "original sin" of Adam and
Eve. As we recall, the "original sin" was early man's attempt
to gain knowledge of ethics and spiritual immortality.
Calvin did not attempt to justify predestination, despite its
obvious unfairness. He preached instead that predestination
was a mystery to which all people should be humbled.
Many things of "God" were never meant to be understood
by human beings, he said.
Calvinism was more than a Sunday religion. It was a way
of life. It demanded of its adherents a pragmatic and austere
lifestyle in which a person's highest duty was to glorify God
in his or her daily actions. People were taught that their
positions in life, no matter what those positions happened
to be, were their "callings" by God. A life should be lived
as though it were a Supreme Being's will that a person was
where he or she was. Calvinism was clearly a philosophy
of feudalism for the modern age.
On religious grounds, Calvin forbade drunkenness, gambling, dancing, and singing flippant tunes. Those were
among the sins that the Elect had been put on Earth
to stamp out. To no one's surprise, Calvinists quickly
developed a reputation for being dour and colorless. They
also grew violent. Calvin was not a man of tolerance and he adopted some of the vicious practices of the East Roman
emperors. For example, Calvin encouraged the death penalty
for heresy against his new doctrines and he demanded that
"witches" be burned to death at the stake.
Calvinism traveled from its stronghold in Switzerland to
other countries. In the Netherlands, Calvinists had played
a very large role in agitating and bringing about the Eighty
Years War, which gave us the Bank of Amsterdam. In Great
Britain, Calvinism was the basis of the Puritan religion.
Like their Calvinist brethren in Holland, some English
Puritans decided to assert their gloomy beliefs and material
self-interests through violent revolution. In the year 1642,
a group of wealthy and prominent British Puritans led a
full-scale civil war against the English king, Charles I. In
Puritan eyes, Charles had committed crimes against God by
marrying a Catholic and by being tolerant of Catholicism.
After winning the civil war and beheading Charles, the victorious Puritan armies placed their own dictator in charge
of Britain: Oliver Cromwell.
Under Cromwell, the Puritans were able to assert their
religious beliefs into the arena of foreign policy. English
Puritans believed strongly in the concept of Armageddon,
i.e., the Final Battle. They believed that the great Final Battle
had begun and would climax in the latter 17th century, and
that the Puritans' civil war against Charles I was a part
of that Battle. The Pope was labeled the anti-Christ and
Catholicism was considered Satan's tool. Cromwell tried
to shape English foreign policy around these beliefs by
working to solidify international Protestant unity and by
waging war against Catholics in various parts of Europe.
Cromwell believed that the English Puritans were God's
"second chosen" people* and that his actions were all part
of Biblical prophecy.
*The Hebrews were considered God's "first chosen," but they had fallen out of favor.
Calvinist cosmology did much to shape Puritan ideas
about war. Engaging in war was glorified. The Puritans
believed that tension and struggle were permanent elements of the cosmic scheme because of the eternal struggle between
God and Satan. Professor Michael Walzer, in his intriguing
book, Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of
Radical Politics, explains their belief this way:
As there is permanent opposition and conflict in the
cosmos, so there is permanent warfare on earth . ..
This tension was itself an aspect of salvation: a man
at ease was a man lost.1
It is vital to understand this Puritan idea because it exalts
war as a necessary step to spiritual salvation. It was also
one of the seeds which gave us the Marxist philosophy
of "dialectical materialism."2
This Puritan belief is one
of the most pernicious ideas ever taught by the Custodial
religions. It caused Puritans to view peace as an affront to
God because peace meant that the struggle against "Satan"
had ceased! "The world's peace is the keenest war against
God," wrote Thomas Taylor in 1630.* The highest calling
of a Puritan man was to march off to war for the glory
of God. When there were (heaven forbid) no wars
in progress, men were encouraged to attend military drills
for recreation: * Dialectical materialism is the philosophy which states that conflicts between social classes are inevitable and that such conflicts are the first stage of a process that will ultimately bring about a classless Utopia on Earth.
And in religious respects, since every man will have
recreations, that be best which is freest from sin, that
best which strengtheneth a man . .. then abandon your
carding, dicing, chambering, wantonness, dalliance,
scurrilous discoursing and vain raveling out of time,
to frequent these exercises [military drills] .. .3
The Puritans' ennoblement of war, coupled with their
austere pragmatism, helped bring about major changes
in the manner of fighting wars. Generations earlier, the Renaissance had had a very interesting effect on warfare in
Europe. War had become a "gentleman's" activity—ornate
and full of bluster. European rulers expended considerable
sums of money to create aesthetic and colorful armies. Bright
uniforms, flapping banners, and fancy armor were the order
of the day. Significantly, pageantry replaced combat on the
battlefield. More often than not, the dazzling Renaissance
armies engaged in endless maneuverings against one another
with little actual contact. After a great deal of pomp and
show, a military stalemate would often occur followed by
an elegant cavalry maneuver known as the caracole. Each
side could then declare itself the winner with few or no
casualties, and march colorfully home to the adulation of
its people. Young male soldiers survived to quicken their
lovers' pulses with noble tales of gallantry and honor in
the field.
In today's jaded, ultra pragmatic world, the above activities might seem rather silly, like something from The Wizard
of Oz. They were, however, an exceptionally important phenomenon because the Renaissance style of warfare revealed
the true nature of the human spirit. The majority of people will gravitate away from war when given the chance. They
will turn arenas of conflict into theatres of pageantry. They
will choose life, color, and artistry over death, pallor, and
decay. The Renaissance was a short period of history
revealing that when repression is eased, when intolerance
and war-inducing philosophies diminish in importance, and
when people are able to think and act more freely, human
beings as a whole will naturally and automatically move
away from war.
Puritan austerity and glorification of war helped make
European wars bloodier. Puritan armies operated on the idea
that wars were meant to be fought effectively, not colorfully.
With that in mind, Puritans eliminated military glitter and
developed efficient fighting units through rigorous drilling.
This pragmatic way of fighting quickly spread when other
nations discovered that a beautifully embroidered banner could
not win against an effectively pointed cannon. While most
military organizations today still engage in some pageantry,
it is noticeably absent in ,
226 William Bramley
the actual conduct of war. We observe instead austere
fighting uniforms, curt efficiency, and military strategists
who coldly calculate nuclear megadeath with percentage
points and probability factors. They are all reflections of
the pragmatism reintroduced into war by the Puritans and
other Protestants. As we survey the war-mangled bodies of
our fellow humans who have been killed more efficiently
and more pragmatically, perhaps we realize that Renaissance
pageantry was not so silly after all.
Despite its early successes, the new Puritan government
under Cromwell did not last very long. The Stuart dynasty
regained the British throne in 1660 with the crowning of
Charles II (son of the beheaded Charles I). Charles II died
25 years later in 1685 without an heir, and so his brother,
James II, took the throne. James ruled a mere three years,
after which a second English revolution was launched in
1688 known as the "Glorious Revolution." Although a big
issue was still Protestantism versus Catholicism, the Puritans
did not lead the Glorious Revolution. In fact, a great many
Puritans had fled England to establish colonies in North
America after Charles II assumed the throne. The Glorious
Revolution was led, in part, by none other than the House
of Orange-Nassau. By the time of the Glorious Revolution,
the House of Orange was firmly seated on the Dutch throne.
How Orange also came to take the British throne and reign
over three nations at once is a fascinating story of political
intrigue.
23
William and Mary
Have a War
KING CHARLES II of England and his brother/successor,
James II, had a sister, Mary, who had married the Dutch
Prince of Orange. This marriage created a family tie between
the royal houses of Britain and Holland. This tie was further
strengthened by the marriage of James II's daughter, Mary
II, to the son of the Prince of Orange, William III. Royal
marriages in those times were not only matters of "breeding," they were also designed to secure political advantages
and were often arranged with all of the sophistication and
cunning of an espionage coup. Several German royal families were masters at the game. They were notorious for
marrying into foreign royal families as a stepping stone
to seizing power in those other nations. The House of
Orange-Nassau was a member of that treacherous German
clique. The Stuart family, after its hard-won struggle to
regain the English throne, fell into the trap. Its marriages
into the House of Orange helped bring the Stuart monarchy to a permanent end during the Glorious Revolution of
1688. To understand how this happened, and why all of this is important to us, let us briefly review the Glorious
Revolution.
A powerful group of Englishmen and Scots had formed
a Protestant political faction in England known as the
Whigs. The Whigs were actually headquartered in Holland
which, of course, was under the monarchy of the House
of Orange. From their Dutch base, the Whigs launched the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 and quickly unseated James
II in a bloodless coup. The Whigs then placed James II's
son-in-law, William III of Orange, on the British throne.
The House of Orange now reigned over both Holland and
England, as well as over their original German homeland.
Behind this intrigue we see the shadow of the Brotherhood. William III is reported to have been a Freemason.1
In
fact, in 1688, a militant secret society was formed to support
William III. It was called the Order of Orange after William
Ill's family, and it patterned itself after Freemasonry. The
Orange Order was anti-Catholic and its purpose was to
ensure that Protestantism remained the dominant Christian
religion of England. The Orange Order has survived the
centuries and is today strongest in Ireland where it has over
100,000 members. It is perhaps best known for its annual
public parade to commemorate the successes of William III
in England.
Upon his assumption of the British throne, William III
quickly undertook to erect the same institutions in England as
those which had been established by his dynasty in Holland:
a strong parliament with a weakened monarchy and a central
bank operating on an inflatable paper currency. William and
his queen, Mary II, also promptly launched England into
expensive wars against Catholic France.
The man chosen to organize the English central bank
under William III was a mysterious Scottish adventurer
named William Paterson, of whom very little was apparently
known. The British House of Commons (parliament) was at
first reluctant to accept Paterson's central bank scheme, but
relented as the British national debt continued to skyrocket
from the conflicts launched by the very warlike William
III. The paper money system with its built-in inflation was
touted as the way to finance the costly wars. Taxes were already as high as they could reasonably go and so the House
of Commons felt that it had no alternative but to institute the
scheme. The Bank of England was thereby born and warfare
could continue, just as war could continue in Holland after
the Bank of Amsterdam had been created there.
The Bank of England has been labeled by some economists the "Mother of Central Banks." It became the model
for all central banks which followed it, including the central
banks of today. Under the Bank of England scheme, the
central bank was to be the nation's primary bank, and it
would lend exclusively to the national government. The
central bank's entire purpose was to put the government into
debt and to be the government's major creditor. The central
bank's notes would be lent to the government and those notes
would then circulate as a national currency. This would cause
the nation and its people to rely on those notes as money. The
establishment of the Bank of England caused Britain to go
deeply into debt to a monetary elite (the "paper aristocracy")
which could then influence the use of the nation's resources.
This is the modus operandi of every central bank today.
Like most modern central banks, the Bank of England
was a privately-owned or privately-operated bank with
quasi-governmental status. In accordance with Paterson's
plan, the financiers who pooled their resources to create the
Bank of England received approval from the government
to issue gold and silver notes in a quantity many times
exceeding the financiers' pooled holdings. The standard
practice of bankers during that period was to issue notes four
to five times in excess of their precious metals. The Bank of
England, however, issued an incredible multiplication of
16 2/3. The British government agreed to borrow those notes and
honor them as legal money for use in its purchases. The government accepted this plan because the government was not
required to repay the initial loan, only the interest on the loan.
Would not the Bank of England lose money on such a deal?
Not at all.
The face value of the loan notes were many times in
excess of the value of the actual assets on which the
notes were based. The interest on the loan in just one
year surpassed the total value of the precious metals of Specifically, the financiers had put
together a total base of 72,000 pounds of actual gold and
silver. By issuing notes valued at 16 2/3 times the base, the
bank was able to make a loan to England of 1,200,000
Pounds in paper money. The yearly interest rate was 8 1/3%,
which equaled 100,000 Pounds. This amounted to a profit
of 28,000 Pounds, or 39% in just one year! 119s
Twenty-two years after the Bank of England was established, an identical bank was set up in France in 1716. The
founder of the French version was John Law, who became
the Finance Minister of France. Law has been dubbed the
"Father of Inflation" for his efforts. This title is not accurate, of course, because the practice of inflation had begun
earlier. However, the spectacular inflation which occurred
in France after Law's central bank was nationalized gave
Law the dubious, honor of the title.
As the son of a goldsmith-turned-banker, John Law
was an interesting character in many ways. He was
deeply devoted to the schools of Brotherhood mysticism
that were behind many of the important social changes
occurring in his time. Biographer Hans Wantoch, writing
in his book Magnificent Money-Makers, describes Law as
"one of the last of the alchemist-mystics, of the astrologers
who were dying out in the time of Voltaire, but in his
pursuit of the stone of wisdom he invented inflation."2
Another interesting fact is that Law was a Scotsman with
an obscure background, just like his earlier counterpart
in England, William Paterson. The Scottish link between
Law and Patterson may be significant when we later
review evidence that Scotland was an important center of
secret, but far-reaching, Brotherhood activity in Europe.
Law had played upon France's justifiable paranoia of
England in order to convince the French government to
establish a central bank identical to that of Britain. The
warfare which had earlier been instigated by William III
was causing a serious drain on the French treasury. Law's
proposal seemed an attractive solution and so it was finally
adopted.
At first, the new French currency issued under Law's
plan appeared to revitalize the French economy. This happened because the banknotes could be redeemed for
coins in which the people had faith. After the Bank of
France became nationalized, however, it issued a severe
overabundance of notes, not just a careful and gradual
increase. People quickly realized that there were far more
paper notes in circulation than there were coins to back them
up. The result was a shattering of popular confidence in the
notes and a consequent upheaval of the French economy.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 not only gave us
the Bank of England, which is still Great Britain's
central bank today, it also gave us England's current
royal family: the House of Windsor. The House of
Windsor is directly descended from the royal family
of German Hannover*, which had intimate ties to the
House of Orange and to other German principalities in the
treacherous marry-and-overthrow clique. After William III
of Orange/England died, his sister Anne was seated
on the British throne. By prior arrangement, upon Anne's
death, the British throne was relinquished by the Orange
family to the rulers of the German state of Hannover,
who had also earlier married into the British Stuart family.
Hannover's first elector [prince], Duke Ernest Augustus
(1629-1698), had married a granddaughter of England's
King James I. As was true with the House of Orange, the
Hanoverian nuptials to the Stuart family did not legally
entitle any of the Hanoverians to sit on the British throne,
but with the overthrow of James II by the Whigs and House
of Orange, the rules were changed to suit the victors. * In Germany, Hannover was spelled with two "n's." In Britain, the spelling had only one "n." I will use the British spelling "Hanover" when referring to the family in Britain, and the German spelling "Hannover" when specifically referring to the German state.
The first Hanoverian king to take the British throne was
George Louis, who became George I of England. George I
could not speak English and he viewed England as a
temporary possession. He continued to devote most of
his attention and care to his German homeland. As generations of Hanoverians ascended to the British throne,
they became permanently entrenched in British society.
The Hanoverians provided England with all of its monarchs through 1901, and Hanoverian descendants from
Queen Victoria's side have furnished the rest all the way
up until today. During all of that time, the dynasty continued
to maintain strong ties to other German noble families.
During the first century and a half of Hanoverian rule in
England, for example, the British Hanoverian kings married only the daughters of other German royal families.
Not surprisingly, there was widespread opposition in
England to the Hanoverians after they took over. Many
Englishmen understandably felt that German monarchs had
no business reigning over British subjects. Anti-Hanoverian
factions arose seeking to put the Stuarts back on the throne
of England. Because of this, the Hanoverians decided not to
allow a large standing army of native Britons, fearing they
might stage a coup. Instead, whenever England required
a large number of troops, the Hanoverians used money
from the British treasury to rent mercenaries from their
German friends and from their own German principality
of Hannover, all at a most handsome fee. The greatest
number of mercenaries were provided by the royal family
of Hesse, which had close and friendly ties to the German
House of Hannover. A curious aspect of the mercenary
arrangement is that some important members of those
German families, especially from Hesse, later emerged
as leaders of a new type of Freemasonry which had
been created to topple the Hanoverians from the English
throne!
Before we study this remarkable situation, we should look
to see what was happening with Freemasonry at that time.
Major changes were unfolding that were about to make
Freemasonry the single largest branch of the Brotherhood
network.
24
Knights' New Dawn
As HUMAN HISTORY entered the eighteenth century, changes
were occurring. The Inquisition was almost dead and the
Bubonic Plague was dying with it.
Students of Masonic history know that the early 1700's
were an important period for Freemasonry. Masonic lodges
in England had attracted many members who were not
masons or builders by trade. This happened because
Freemasonry was evolving into something other than a
trade guild. It was becoming a fraternal society with a
secret mystical tradition. Many lodges were quietly opening their doors to non-masons, especially to local aristocrats
and men of influence. By the year 1700, an estimated
70% of all Freemasons were people from other occupations. They were called "Accepted Masons" because they
were accepted into the lodges even though they were
not masons by trade.
On June 24, 1717, representatives from four British
lodges met at the Goose and Gridiron Alehouse in London
and created a new Grand Lodge. The new Grand Lodge, which was called by some "The Mother Grand Lodge of
the World," officially dropped the guild aspect of Freemasonry ("operative Freemasonry") and replaced it with a
type of Freemasonry that was strictly mystical and fraternal
("speculative Freemasonry"). The titles, tools and products
of the mason's trade were no longer addressed as objects
that members would use in their livelihoods. Instead, the
items were transformed entirely into mystical and fraternal symbols. These changes were not made suddenly, but
were the result of a trend which had already begun well
before 1717.
A number of histories incorrectly state that the Mother
Grand Lodge of 1717 was the beginning of Freemasonry
itself. As we have seen, Freemasonry's roots were firmly
established long before then, even in England. For example,
one Masonic legend relates that Prince Edwin of England
had invited guilds of Freemasons into his country as early
as 926 A.D. to assist the construction of several cathedrals
and stone buildings. Masonic manuscripts dating from 1390
and 1410 have been reported. Handwritten minutes from
a Masonic meeting from the year 1599 are reproduced in
Albert Mackey's History of Freemasonry. Freemasonry was
so well-established in England by the 16th century that a
well-documented schism in 1567 is on record. The schism
divided English Freemasons into two major factions: the
"York" and "London" Masons.
The new Grand Lodge system established at the Goose
and Gridiron Alehouse in 1717 consisted at first of only one
level (degree) of initiation. Within five years of the Lodge's
founding, two additional degrees were added so that the
system consisted of three steps: Entered Apprentice, Fellow
Craft, and Master Mason. These steps are commonly called
the "Blue Degrees" because the color blue is symbolically
important in them. The three Blue Degrees have remained the
first three steps of nearly all Masonic systems ever since.
The Mother Grand Lodge issued charters to men in
England, Europe and the British Empire authorizing them
to establish lodges practicing the Blue Degrees. The colorful
fraternal activities of the lodges provided a popular way for
men to spend their time and Freemasonry soon became quite the rage. Many lodge meetings were held in taverns where
robust drinking was a featured attraction. Of course, many
members were also drawn into the lodges by promises of
fraternity and spiritual enlightenment.
The new Mother Grand Lodge was reportedly very strict
in its rule forbidding political controversy within the lodges.
Ideally, Freemasonry was to be independent of political
issues and problems. In practice, however, the Mother
Grand Lodge, which was established only three years after
the coronation of the first Hanoverian king, supported the
new German monarchy at a time when many Englishmen
were strongly opposed to it. One of the earliest and most
influential Grand Masters of the Mother Lodge system was
the Rev. John T. Desaguliers, who was elected Grand Master in 1719. Desaguliers had earlier written a tract stating
that the Hanoverians were the only legitimate sovereigns
of England under the "laws of nature." On November
5, 1737, he conferred the first two Masonic degrees on
Frederic, Prince of Wales—a Hanoverian. During the ensuing generations, members of the Hanoverian royal family
even became Grand Masters.* The English Grand Lodge
was decidedly pro-Hanoverian and its proscription against
political controversy really amounted to a support of the
Hanoverian status quo. *Augustus Frederick (1773-1843), the ninth son of George III, was Grand Master for the thirty years before his death. Prior to that, his older brother, who became King George IV, had held the Grand Master position. A later royal Grand Master was King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria; Edward served as Grand Master for 27 years while he was the Prince of Wales. The most recent royal Grand Master to become a king was the Duke of York, who afterwards became King George VI (r. 1936-1952).
In light of the Machiavellian nature of Brotherhood
activity, if we were to view the Mother Grand Lodge
as a Brotherhood faction designed to keep alive a controversial political cause (i.e., Hanoverian rule in Britain), we
would expect the Brotherhood network to be the source of
a faction supporting the opposition. That is precisely what
happened. Shortly after the founding of the Mother Grand Lodge, another system of Freemasonry was launched that
directly opposed the Hanoverians!
When James II was unseated by the Glorious Revolution
of 1688, he fled England. His followers promptly formed
organizations to help him recover the British throne. The
most effective and militant group was the Jacobite organization. Headquartered in Scotland and Catholic Ireland,
the Jacobites were able to rally widespread support for
the Stuarts. They staged many uprisings and military
campaigns against the Hanoverians, although they were
ultimately unsuccessful in recrowning the Stuarts. When
the unsuccessful James II died in 1701, his son, the self proclaimed James III, continued the family struggle to
regain the British throne. A new branch of Freemasonry
was created to assist him. That branch was patterned after
the old Knights Templar.
The man who reportedly founded Knights Templar Freemasonry was one of James Ill's loyal supporters, Michael
Ramsey. Ramsey was a Scottish mystic who had been hired
by James III to tutor James' two sons in France.
Ramsey's goal was to re-establish the disgraced Templar
Knights in Europe. To accomplish this, Ramsey adopted the
same approach used by the Mother Grand Lodge system of
London: the resurrected Knights Templar were to be a secret
mystical/fraternal society open to men of varied occupations.
The old knightly titles, uniforms, and "tools of the trade"
were to be used for symbolic, fraternal and ritual purposes
within a Masonic context. In keeping with these aims,
Ramsey dubbed himself the Chevalier [Knight] Ramsey.
Ramsey did not work alone. He was assisted by other
Stuart supporters. Among them was the English aristocrat,
Charles Radcliffe. Radcliffe was a zealous Jacobite who had
been arrested with his brother, the Earl of Derwentwater, for
their actions in connection with the failed rebellion of 1715
to place James III on the British throne. Both brothers were
sentenced to death. The Earl was beheaded, but Radcliffe
escaped to France.
In France, Radcliffe assumed the title of Earl of
Derwentwater. He presided over a meeting in 1725 to
organize a new Masonic lodge based on the Templar format being revealed by Ramsey. The Derwentwater lodge was
instrumental in getting the new Templar system of Freemasonry going in Europe. Derwentwater claimed that the
authority to establish his Lodge came from the Kilwinning
Lodge of Scotland-—Scotland's oldest and most famous
lodge.* Templar Freemasonry is therefore often called Scottish Freemasonry because of its reputed Scottish origin. * There is some debate as to whether Lord Derwentwater had also received a charter from the Mother Grand Lodge of England to start his new French lodge. Many histories state that he did, but some Masonic scholars aver that no record of such a charter exists and that Lord Derwentwater's lodge was an unofficial ("clandestine") lodge. It has been argued that the Mother Grand Lodge of England would not have granted Derwentwater a charter because his pro-Stuart political leanings were well known. As a footnote, Lord Derwentwater "continued to remain politically active and he tried to join Charles Edward during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The ship on which Derwentwater sailed was captured by an English cruiser. The Earl was taken to London where he was beheaded in December 1746.
Ramsey's Scottish Masonry attracted many members by
claiming that the Templar Knights had actually secretly
created the Mother Grand Lodge system. According to
Ramsey, the Knights Templar had rediscovered the "lost"
teachings of Freemasonry centuries earlier in the Holy
Land during the Crusades. They brought the teachings
back to Europe and, after their disgrace and banishment,
secretly kept the teachings alive for hundreds of years in
France, England, and Scotland. After centuries of living
in the shadows, the Templars cautiously re-emerged by
releasing only the Blue Degrees through the vehicle of
the Mother Grand Lodge. Ramsey claimed that the three
Blue Degrees were issued only to test the loyalty of
Freemasons. Once a Freemason proved his loyalty by
reaching the third degree, he was entitled to advance to
the "true" degrees: the fourth, fifth, and higher degrees
released by Ramsey. Ramsey stated that he was authorized to release the higher degrees by a secret Templar
headquarters in Scotland. According to his story, the Scottish Templars were secretly working through the lodge
at Kilwinning.
To effect their pro-Stuart political aims, the Scottish
lodges changed the Biblical symbolism of the third Blue
Degree into political symbolism to represent the House
of Stuart. Ramsey's "higher" degrees contained additional symbolism "revealing" why Freemasons had a duty to
help the Stuarts regain the throne of England. Because
of this, many people viewed Scottish Freemasonry as a
clever attempt to lure Freemasons away from the Mother
Grand Lodge system which supported the Hanoverian monarchy and turn the new converts into pro-Stuart Masons.
The Stuarts themselves joined Ramsey's organization.
James III adopted the Templar title "Chevalier St. George."
His son, Charles Edward, was initiated into the Order of
Knights Templar on September 24, 1745, the same year in
which he led a major Jacobite invasion of Scotland. Two
years later, on April 15, 1747, Charles Edward established
a masonic "Scottish Jacobite Chapter" in the French city
of Arras. Charles Edward later denied ever having been a
Freemason in order to squelch damaging rumors that Scottish
Masonry was nothing more than a front for the Stuart cause
(which it largely was), even though he had been a Grand
Master in the Scottish system. Proof of his Grand Mastership
was discovered in 1853 when someone found the charter
issued by Charles Edward to establish the above-mentioned
lodge at Arras. The charter states in part:
We, Charles Edward, King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, and as such Substitute Grand Master
of the Chapter of H., known by the title of Knight of
the Eagle and .. * * "Chapter of H" is believed to have been the Scottish lodge at Heredon. Charles Edward is denoted as the "Substitute" Grand Master because his father, as King of Scotland, was considered the "hereditary" Grand Master.
We have just discussed the founding of two systems of
Freemasonry. Each one supported the opposite side of an important political conflict going on in England—a conflict
which affected other European nations, as well. Both systems
of Freemasonry were launched within less than five years
of one another. Ramsey's story of how the two systems
came into existence therefore contains some rather stunning
implications. His story implies that a small hidden group of
people belonging to the Brotherhood network in Scotland
deliberately created two opposing types of Freemasonry
to encourage and support both sides of a violent political
controversy. This would be a startlingly clear example of
Machiavellianism.
How true is Ramsey's story?
To answer this question, we must first take a brief look
at the history of Freemasonry in Scotland.
Scotland has long been an important center of masonic
activity. The earliest of the old masonic guilds in Scotland
had been founded at Kilwinning in 1120 A.D. By 1670, the
Kilwinning Lodge was already practicing speculative Freemasonry (although, in name, it was still an operative lodge).
The Scottish lodges were unique in that they were independent of, and were never chartered by, the English Grand
Lodge even after they began to practice the Blue Degrees
of the English Grand Lodge system. The Kilwinning Lodge
itself had been granting charters since the early 15th century.
It ceased doing so only in 1736 when it joined other Scottish
lodges in elevating the Edinburgh Lodge to the position of
Grand Lodge of Scotland. The new Grand Lodge of Scotland
at Edinburgh adopted the speculative system of the English
Grand Lodge, yet it still remained independent of the English
Grand Lodge and issued its own charters. About seven years
later, in 1743, the Kilwinning Lodge broke away from the
Grand Lodge of Scotland over a seemingly trivial dispute.
Kilwinning set itself up as an independent Masonic body
("Mother Lodge of Kilwinning") and once again issued its
own charters. In 1807, the Kilwinning Lodge renounced all
right of granting charters and rejoined the Grand Lodge of
Scotland. We therefore see substantial periods of time in
which the Kilwinning Lodge was independent of all other
Lodges and when it could very well have granted charters to
Templar Freemasons. It was independent at the time Ramsey and Derwentwater claimed to have received authorization
from Kilwinning to establish Templar degrees in Europe.
Some masonic historians argue that the Kilwinning Lodge
and other Scottish lodges still had nothing to do with creating
the so-called "Scottish" degrees. They state that the Scottish degrees were all created in France by Ramsey and
his Jacobite cohorts. Some Masonic writers contend that
Templarism did not even reach Scotland until the year
1798—decades after it had already caught on in Europe.
Those writers further claim that the Kilwinning Lodge
had never practiced anything but the Blue Degrees of the
English system. Others believe that Ramsey, who was born
in the vicinity of Kilwinning, claimed a Scottish origin to
his degrees out of nationalistic pride and to help build a
base of political support for the Stuarts in Scotland. These
arguments sound persuasive, but historical documentation
proves that they are all false.
First of all, we have already seen that Scotland was providing this era with important historical figures contributing to
some of the changes being wrought by Brotherhood revolutionaries. Michael Ramsey is the third mysterious Scotsman
of obscure origin we have seen help bring important changes
to Europe. The other two were discussed earlier: William
Paterson, who helped German rulers set up a central bank
in England, and John Law, who was the architect of the
central bank of France.
Secondly, the Scottish masonic lodges were a natural
place for pro-Stuart Templar degrees to arise. Scotland was
strongly pro-Stuart and the Jacobites were headquartered
there. Decades before the English Grand Lodge was
created, many Masons in Scotland were already known
to be helping the Stuarts. These Scottish loyalists used
their lodges as secret meeting places in which to hatch
political intrigues. Pro-Stuart Masonic activity may go
as far back as 1660—the year of the Stuart Restoration
(when the Stuarts took the throne back from the Puritans). According to some early Masons, the Restoration
was largely a Masonic feat. General Monk, who played
such a pivotal role in the Restoration, was reported to be
a Freemason.
Finally, there is incontrovertible evidence that the Scottish
lodges, including the one at Kilwinning, were involved with
Templarism decades before 1798. Masonic historian Albert
Mackey reports in his History of Freemasonry that in 1779,
the Kilwinning Lodge had issued a charter to some Irish
Masons who called themselves the "Lodge of High Knights
Templars." More than a decade earlier, in 1762, St. Andrew's
Lodge of Boston had applied to the Grand Lodge of Scotland
for a warrant (which it later received) by which the Boston
lodge could confer the "Royal Arch" and Knight Templar
degrees at its August 28, 1769 meeting. It is significant
that St. Andrew's Lodge had applied to the Grand Lodge
of Scotland for the right to confer the Templar degree, not
to any French lodge.
We have thus confirmed two elements of Ramsey's story:
1) that Scottish lodges practiced Templar Freemasonry, and
2) that a Scottish Grand Lodge was granting Templar charters
at least as early as 1762. We can safely assume that the
Scottish Grand Lodge was involved with Templarism before
that year because the Lodge would have had to establish
the Templar degree before another lodge could apply for
it. Unfortunately, there are no apparent records surviving
to indicate just when Templarism began in the Scottish
lodges. Ramsey and Derwentwater, of course, claim that
the Templar degrees already existed in the early 1720's.
The Scottish lodges may well have been involved with
some form of Templarism at that time.
Understandably, the Scottish lodges were highly secretive
about their Templar activities. We only know about the 1762
Templar charter to St. Andrew's Lodge from records found
in Boston. One need only consider the fates of the two Earls
of Derwentwater to appreciate the dangers awaiting those
people, including Freemasons, who engaged in pro-Stuart
political activity.
Not every element of Ramsey's Templar story was backed
by evidence. For example, Freemasonry itself was not started
by the Templar Knights as Ramsey implied. The masonic
guilds which gave birth to Freemasonry existed long before
the Templar Knights were founded. On the other hand,
there is circumstantial evidence that Templar Knights may indeed have been the ones who brought the Blue Degrees
to England.
As mentioned in Chapter 15, it is thought that the three
Blue Degrees were already being practiced centuries earlier
by the Assassin sect of Persia. The Templar Knights had
frequent contact with the Assassins during the Crusades.
During those periods when they were not fighting against
one another, the Assassins and Templars established treaties
and engaged in other amicable relations. One treaty even
allowed the Templars to build several fortresses on Assassin
territory. It is believed by some historians that during those
peaceful interludes, the Templars learned about the Assassins' extensive mystical teachings and incorporated some
of those teachings into the Templar system. It is therefore
quite possible that the Templars did indeed have the Blue
Degrees long before they were established by the English
Mother Grand Lodge.
Further circumstantial evidence is that during the Crusade
era, the Templars were at the height of their power in Europe.
They owned properties throughout the Continent. Their holdings and preceptories in Scotland were especially numerous.
When the Templars abandoned the Holy Land after the Crusades, they eventually returned to their preceptories around
the world, including Scotland. After the Templar Order was
suppressed throughout Europe, many Templars refused to
abandon their Templar traditions and so they conducted
their activities in secrecy. Some secretly-active Templars
joined Masonic lodges, including lodges in Scotland and
England. It is therefore conceivable that Templars were the
conduit through which the three Blue Degrees traveled from
the Assassin sect, through Scotland, to the Mother Grand
Lodge of 1717.
Some Freemasons may view any attempt to connect the
Blue Degrees with the Assassin sect as an effort to discredit
Freemasonry, even though the connection was suggested by
one of Masonry's most esteemed historians. In discussing
such a link, it is important to keep in mind that the assassination techniques employed by the Assassins were never
taught in the Blue Degrees. The Assassins possessed an
extensive mystical tradition that extended well beyond their controversial political methods. Furthermore, the Assassins
had borrowed many of their mystical teachings from earlier
Brotherhood systems. The Blue Degrees may have therefore begun even earlier than the founding of the Assassin
organization.
Whatever the ultimate truth of the origins of the Blue
Degrees and Scottish Degrees may have been, both systems
gained great popularity. The Scottish Degrees eventually
came to dominate nearly all of Freemasonry. On continental
Europe, the center of Scottish Freemasonry proved to be
Germany, where the same small clique of German petty
princes we have been observing soon emerged as leaders
in the new Templar Freemasonry.
next
The "King Rats"
