Still Running Off at the Keyboard

KNIGHTS OF JUBILATION...CONNECTING THE DOTS

Recently I was reading an article in the March "Culture Wars" titled "Voltaire and the Black Operation known as the Enlightenment," by E. Michael Jones. In that article he talks about a man named Toland, the Whig radicals and the Knights of Jubilation.

Google brought up this cached entry for "Winston Churchill & The Ancient Order of Druids" when I looked for additional information on the Knights.

According to the article, Churchill was a Freemason and was also initiated into the Druid Order. Even more interesting to anyone curious about the occult is the following:

The Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids was founded in 1874 by Wentworth Little. Little was a Freemason and his druidic order was designed as an exclusively Masonic society. All of its members had to have reached the degree of Master Mason before joining. The purpose of the Ancient and Archaeological Order was to study the connections between Freemasonry and the druid tradition.

In 1866 Little founded the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, a project not dissimilar to the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids. SRiA members were also required to be Master Masons first and just as Little’s druid order studied Freemasonry and druidry so the S.R.i.A. also concerned itself with research.

It was three members of the S.R.i.A. William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddle McGregor Mathers and Dr. W. Woodman who founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an order which has gained a notorious reputation largely by introducing Aleister Crowley to the occult. Little’s Druid and Rosicrucian interests seem to have been brought full circle in 1916 when Nuada, a Duid society and off-shoot of the Golden Dawn tradition was founded. Nuada was based in Clapham, London and was led by G.W. MacGregor Reid. McGregor Reid was a personal friend of Crowley and was also a Chosen Chief of the Universal Druid Bond from 1909-1946 after which he was succeeded by his son Robert (Chosen Chief 1946-1964).

The connections between these orders and Freemasonry are part of a much wider relationship between the two traditions of Druidry and Masonry giving Little’s Druids much to ponder in their research.

The Appletree Tavern in Covent Garden, London was the scene of the landmark meeting in 1717 at which Freemasons decided to organise a Grand Lodge to co-ordinate Freemasonry across the capital and later throughout England. In the same public house, in the same year, the inaugural assembly of the Universal Druid Bond was held, signifying what could be called the institutionalisation of the Druid revival which had begun with the work of John Auberey.

It is said that the first Chosen Chief of the Universal Druid Bond was John Toland, a member of a Masonic organisation called the Knights Of Jubilation. Toland was chief from 1717 to 1722 when he was succeeded by William Stuckley (1722 - 1765). Stuckley was also a prominent Freemason.

Toland’s role in the Druid revival is however questioned. In 1726 he wrote History of the Druids a critical account of ancient Druidry which sits uncomfortably with the notion that Toland was a Druid himself.

Connections between Freemasonry and Druidry crossed the Atlantic. In the United States in the eighteenth century, one Masonic Lodge at Newburgh, New York transformed itself into The Druid Society using the former Masonic lodge for its meetings and adopting much Masonic ceremony too.

Churchills’ own association with both Freemasonry and Druidry were short-lived however and his interest in Druidry appears to have been wholly towards its fraternal character with little or no sympathy for its spirituality.

S.R.I.A. is still around, though the relationship between this group and the one started by Little is complicated. In any case they have retained the rose and cross emblem.

According to Robert Anton Wilson:

Any psychoanalyst will guess at once the most probable symbolic meanings of the Rose and the Cross; but no psychologist engaged in psi research has applied the key to the deciphering of traditional magic texts. The earliest reference to freemasonry in English occurs in Anderson's "Muses Threnody," 1638: "For we be brethren of the Rosey Cross We have the Mason Word and second sight" but no parapsychologist has followed up the obvious clue contained in this conjunction of the vaginal rose, the phallic cross, the word of invocation, and the phenomenon of thought projection. (ILLUMINATUS!, p. 772)

And further:

Ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, is chiefly emblematic of the Mass of the Holy Ghost

which I blogged a short time ago demonstrating the relationship between the rosy cross, the ouroboros, and the mass of the holy ghost.

Returning to the article on Winston Churchill & The Ancient Order of Druids:

That a British prime minister should have once been a Druid may at first seem surprising but on reflection Churchill seems to have followed an unlikely tradition of religious pluralism amongst prime ministers. Famously there was Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew. Less well known and, where know, infamously there was Jonh Stuart, the third Earl of Bute. Stuart was born in 1713 and became an Earl in 1723 on the death of his father (the Isle of Bute was the family estate). Educated at Eton, Bute obtained a law degree and had a life-long interest in botany. In 1736 he became a member of the House of Lords. A Tory Bute has the unenviable reputation of having been one of Britain’s most unpopular prime ministers ever having gained the post through royal favour in 1762 and serving in the post until the following year (he was in fact Britain's first Scottish Prime Minister.

Bute was also a Satanist, or at least he was as much a Satanist as Churchill was a Druid, belonging to an avowedly Satanic group though probably for social and fraternal reasons more than theological conviction. The group in question was the Order of St. Francis the most notorious of the so called Hell Fire Clubs of eighteenth century Britain. The Order of St. Francis was founded by Francis Dashwood (hence its name) sometime around 1745. At its core were an inner circle of founding members known as the Unholy Twelve, of which Bute was one. Though several were there for social (and as we shall see sexual reasons) some members were avowedly satanists. Aside from Dashwood, both Thomas Potter and George Selwyn have been cited in this context.

Meetings of the Order of St. Francis were, from 1750, held at Medmenham Abbey (a former Cistercian abbey) and began with a black mass but this was only the prelude for a drinking binge and sexual orgy facilitated by prostitutes (usually dressed as nuns) hired (or coerced) for the evening, the real attraction for members like Bute. According to Daniel Mannix, Bute was a dedicated member, never missing a meeting.

As a member of the establishment Bute was not alone at Medmenham. Dashwood, an M.P. was Postmaster General and among other prominent members was John Wilkes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Dashwood had also served a turn in this post).

Another member was a poet called Charles Churchill. Unfortunately a familial connection with the Druid Winston is ruled out by Mannix who states in his erroneously entitled book about the Order The Hell Fire Club that Charles Churchill was not related to the family of the twentieth century prime minister.

An Aleister Crowley website also speaks of the monks of Medmenham and indicates that Timothy Leary follows in their path:

The word Thelema finds its origins in the Bible, but was first brought into common usage by Rabelais, who wrote of the Abbey of Theleme, and had the motto "Fay ce que vouldras" or "Do what you will." This theme echoed St. Augustine's "Love and do what you will" and was a part of the emerging philosophy of humanism. Others who adopted this idea was Sir Francis Dashwood and the Monks of Medmenham (better known as The Hellfire Club) and Sir Walter Besant and James Rice in their novel The Monks of Thelema (1878).

Science, Magick, and Sexuality

Crowley claimed to use a scientific method to study what people at the time called "spiritual" experiences, making "The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion" the catchphrase of his magazine The Equinox. By this he meant that mystical experiences should not be taken at face value, but critiqued and experimented with in order to arrive at their underlying religious meaning. In this he may be considered to foreshadow Dr. Timothy Leary, who at one point sought to apply the same method to psychedelic drug experiences. Yet like Leary's, Crowley's method fell short of objectivity and has received little "scientific" attention outside the circle of Thelema's practitioners.

Timothy Leary's devotees are part of the movement known as Discordians:

Remarks: The web of discord touches many other audience cults. Discordian web pages are often linked to such groups as the Church of the Sub-Genius, the Cthulhu cults, Timothy Leary's devotees and the like. Although the work of the Discordians can not be measured as a group effort, the individual efforts to broadcast the Discordian message in imaginative ways is impressive. Audience cults have no concept of leadership in a traditional sense, and therefore they are constantly changing. Because of this metamorphizing way of life, the audience cults are often met with distrust by more conventional faiths and organizations.

And as I've blogged in the past, one of the premier Discordians today is Robert Anton Wilson, co-author of THE ILLUMINATUS!TRILOGY with Robert Shea, whose widow, Patricia Monaghan, is a faculty member at Catholic DePaul University. ILLUMINATUS! includes a black mass said by a homosexual priest named "Father Pederasti."

Here is a list of "Known Discordians." Scroll down until you see the link to "Discordian Society of Saint Mary's University", and click the link. You will end up here at their homepage. Scroll down to the bottom and click the "Homepage of the Discordian Society of Saint Mary's University" link which will take you here. At the top of the St. Mary's homepage there is a dropdown menu where you can link to the history of the institution. You can clearly see on the history page that this is a Catholic university.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!