The World Afire

ONE SIGNIFICANT BY-PRODUCT of the American Revolution 

was a philosophical reshaping of how people viewed revolu- 

tion. When Benjamin Franklin was in France to win French 

military support for the American cause, he engaged in an 

intensive public relations campaign. He vigorously prom- 

ulgated the idea of "virtuous revolution"—a concept which 

had already found increasing favor in the Masonic lodges. 

The public at that time tended to view violent revolution as 

a crime against society. Franklin was successful in changing 

this perception by encouraging people to accept violent revo- 

lutions as steps in the progress of mankind. Revolutionaries 

were no longer to be frowned upon as criminals, he argued, 

because they were idealists righting for freedom and justice. 

A new motto was coined: "Revolution against tyranny is the 

most sacred of duties."1 These bold ideas electrified Paris 

and helped to win open French support for the American 

cause, but at a terrible long-term cost to human society. 

The ideas expressed by Franklin have helped to stimulate 

endless bloody revolutions ever since. 

294 

THE GODS OF EDEN 295 

The American Revolution was followed by many other 

revolutions and/or the establishment of republican-style gov- 

ernments throughout the western world and South America. 

The success of the American Revolution had made it easy 

to rally people to fight. We witness during this era the 

French Revolution, the creation of the Batavian Republic 

in the Netherlands (1795-1806), the Helvetic Republic in 

Switzerland (1798-1805), the Cisalpine Republic in north- 

ern Italy (1797-1805), the Ligurian Republic in Genoa 

(1797-1805), and the Parthenopean Republic in southern 

Italy. Between 1810 and 1824, the Spanish colonies in 

South America took up arms and won their political 

independence. In 1825, the Decembrist revolt broke out 

in Russia. A second revolution erupted in France in 1830. 

In that same year, a revolt in Holland brought about the 

sovereignty of Belgium. A Polish revolution in 1830 and 

1831 was successfully stamped out by Russia. In 1848, a 

major wave of revolutionary activity swept Europe spurred 

by an international collapse of credit caused in good part 

by the new inflatable paper money system, bad harvests, 

and a cholera epidemic. 

In nearly all of those revolutions, we continue to see 

important revolutionary leadership positions held by Free- 

masons. During the first French Revolution, a key rebel 

leader was the Duke of Orleans, who was the Grand 

Master of French Masonry before his resignation at the 

height of the Revolution. Marquis de La Fayette, the 

man who had been initiated into the Masonic fraternity 

by George Washington, also played an important role 

in the French revolutionary cause. The Jacobin Club, 

which was the radical nucleus of the French revolution- 

ary movement, was founded by prominent Freemasons. 

According to Sven Lunden's article, "The Annihilation of 

Freemasonry": 

Herbert, Andre Chenier, Camille Desmoulins and 

many other "Girondins" [moderate French republicans 

supporting republican government over monarchy] of 

the French Revolution were Freemasons.2 

296 William Bramley 

Freemasons were the primary leaders of the 1825 Decem- 

brist revolt in Russia. Some of the planning for that revolt 

took place within their lodges. 

In South America, according to Richard DeHaan, writing 

in Collier's Encyclopedia: 

The order [Freemasonry] played an important role in 

the spread of liberalism and the organization of political 

revolution in Latin America. Like French Freemasonry, 

the Latin American movement was also generally anti- 

clerical. In Mexico and Colombia, Masons helped win 

independence from Spain, while in Brazil they worked 

against Portuguese domination.3 

Mr. Lunden agrees: 

In Latin America, too, the process of liberation from 

the Spanish yoke was the work of Freemasons, in 

large measure. Simon Bolivar was one of the most 

active of Masonry's sons, and so were San Martin, 

Mitre, Alvear, Sarmiento, Benito Juarez—all hallowed 

names to Latin Americans.4 

Regarding other revolutions, Mr. Lunden adds: 

Many of the leaders in the great year 1848, which 

saw so many uprisings against feudal rule in Europe, 

were members of the Order; among them was the 

great Hungarian hero of democracy, Louis Kossuth, 

who found a temporary refuge in America.5 

The 1800's also witnessed the wars of Italian unifica- 

tion led by Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), who was a 

thirty-third degree Mason and the Grand Master of Italy. 

The victorious Garibaldi placed Victor Emmanuel, another 

Freemason, on the throne. 

The Italian wars of unification left two important lega- 

cies: a united Italy and the modem Mafia. The Mafia was 

a loosely-knit secret society founded in Sicily in the mid 

1700's. At first, the Mafia was a resistance movement 

THE GODS OF EDEN 297 

formed to oppose the foreign rulers who controlled Sicily 

at the time. The early Mafiosi were popular heroes who 

specialized in criminal acts against the hated foreigners. 

The Mafia built an underground government in Sicily and 

held power by extortion. The Mafia assisted Garibaldi when 

he invaded Sicily in 1860 and declared himself dictator of 

the island. After the foreign rulers were ousted and Italy was 

unified, the Mafia became the violent criminal network we 

know today. 

Freemasonry was clearly an important catalyst in the 

creation of modern Western-style government. The vast 

majority of Freemasons who participated in the revolutions 

were well-intended. The representative form of government 

they helped to create was certainly an improvement over 

some of the governments they replaced.* Regrettably, the 

lofty ideals of those Freemasons were in the process of 

a speedy betrayal by sources within the Brotherhood net- 

work itself. 

One consequence of the French Revolution was a severe 

disruption of the French economy. Food production had 

dropped severely and the new regime was in deep political 

trouble because the majority of Frenchmen were still loyal 

to the monarchy. Under this cloud, the revolutionary govern- 

ment decided to solve the problems of political opposition, 

hunger and distribution of wealth by reducing the human 

population of France. Rather than increase food production 

to meet the demand, it was decided to reduce the demand to 

match the lessened amount of food. Throughout the French 

nation, a program of mass murder was launched as an offi- 

cial program of the revolutionary council. This program was 

*This is not to say that monarchy is always bad. History has seen a 

few benevolent monarchs who ruled well, who could act for peace, 

and who were popular with their people. Hereditary or life-term lead- 

ership has the advantage of stability. It can work if the monarch is 

accountable for his or her actions and' can be removed for chronic 

incompetence or abuse of power. Monarchies have rarely functioned 

well on Earth because monarchs have usually ruled by so-called "divine 

right" and have therefore not been accountable to the people 

they governed. 

298 William Bramley 

known as the Reign of Terror. People were put to death by 

all means available, including guillotine, mass drowning, 

bludgeoning, shooting, and starvation. Although not as 

many people were murdered as the council had planned, 

it has been estimated that over 100,000 people died. 

We have noted that genocides are committed by grouping 

people into superficial categories usually based upon race, 

religious belief, or nationality. The victims are then targeted 

for slaughter even though they may be guilty of no crimes 

against their murderers. The French revolutionaries took the 

process to an extreme. During the Reign of Terror, people 

were grouped simply according to their economic and voca- 

tional standing. Those who fell into the wrong categories 

were deemed members of an undesirable social class and 

were killed. This was certainly as superficial a distinction 

as one can make, yet grouping people in this fashion has 

been extremely successful in factionalizing human beings. 

The French Revolution dragged nearly all of the major 

powers of Europe into a war. Initially benefiting from this 

was William IX, the prince who had inherited the immense 

Hesse-Kassel fortune. William IX rented out, at a handsome 

fee, 8,000 soldiers to England to fight against the French 

during the first half of the 1790's. When Napoleon Bonaparte 

later became emperor of France, William IX seemed to 

gain even more. After Napoleon's troops occupied German 

regions west of the Rhine River, including some Hessian 

properties, Napoleon compensated William IX by awarding 

him a large section of Mainz and by conferring upon William 

the title of Elector—a status higher than prince. The cordial- 

ity between Napoleon and Elector William did not last very 

long, however. William IX tried to play the old trick of 

courting both sides of the conflict in order to make a fortune 

by renting soldiers. William foolishly leased mercenaries to 

the Prussian king for a quarter of a million Pounds to fight 

Napoleon and then tried to claim "neutrality." True to the 

warning of Machiavelli, this double-dealing finally caught 

up and backfired on the House of Hesse. Hesse-Kassel was 

soon annexed and made part of Napoleon's "Kingdom of 

Westphalia." It was not until after Napoleon's defeat at 

the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 that William IX was able 

THE GODS OF EDEN 299 

to regain Hesse-Kassel. Hesse-Kassel remained under the 

control of his dynasty until 1866, when it was taken over 

by Prussia. Although the Hessian royal family has remained 

influential in German society until well into the twentieth 

century, it never regained exclusive rule over its territory. 

Hesse merged into what has become modern Germany— 

a country that was unified in large part by the Prussian 

Hohenzollern dynasty. 

Despite the reversals suffered by Hesse-Kassel, the 

upheavals in France proved to be a boon for one of 

William IX's financial agents: Mayer Amschel Rothschild 

(1743-1812), founder of one of the most influential banking 

houses of Europe. 

Mayer Amschel was an ambitious and hard-working 

merchant who began his career in the Jewish ghetto of 

Frankfurt-am-Main in Hesse. In 1765, two decades before 

the French Revolution, Rothschild managed to gain a hard- 

won audience with Prince William IX, who was still at 

that time living in Hesse-Hanau. Mayer Amschel strove 

to ingratiate himself with the Hessian prince by selling 

antique coins to William at extremely low prices. William, 

who always had an eye open to increasing his material for- 

tunes in any way possible, was delighted to take advantage of 

Rothschild's generous bargains. As a reward, William 

granted Rothschild's request to be appointed a "Crown 

Agent to the Prince of Hesse-Hanau." This appointment, 

made in 1769, was more honorary than substantial, but it 

gave Mayer Amschel a big boost in his community standing 

and aided his efforts to create a successful banking house. 

During the twenty years following his appointment, Mayer 

Amschel continued to keep in close contact with Prince 

William IX. Rothschild's goal was to become one of the 

Prince's personal financial agents. Rothschild's persever- 

ance finally paid off. In 1789, the year in which the French 

Revolution began and four years after William IX inherited 

the wealth of Hesse-Kassel, Mayer was given his first finan- 

cial assignment on behalf of Prince William. This, in turn, 

led to the coveted position as a personal financial agent to 

the Prince. 

300 William Bramley 

Rothschild made a fortune from various activities while 

serving under William IX. The French Revolution and 

the wars it triggered created many shortages throughout 

Hesse. Rothschild capitalized on this situation by Sharply 

raising the prices of the cloth he was importing from 

England. Rothschild also struck a deal with another of 

William IX's chief financial agents, Carl Buderus. The 

deal enabled Rothschild to share in the profits from the 

leasing of Hessian mercenaries to England. Virginia Cowles, 

writing in her excellent book, The Rothschilds, A Family of 

Fortune, described the arrangement: 

At this point Mayer made a proposition to the enterpris- 

ing Carl Buderus. England was paying the Landgrave 

JWilliam IX] large sums of money for the hire of 

Hessian soldiers; and the Rothschilds were paying 

England large sums of money for the goods they were 

importing. Why not let the two-way movement cancel 

itself out, and pocket the commissions both ways on 

the bills of exchange? Buderus agreed, and soon this 

extra string to the Rothschild bow was producing an 

impressive revenue.6 

Out of those beginnings rose the House of Rothschild, 

named after the red shield ("roth" [red] and "schild" [shield]) 

used as its emblem. The Rothschild family soon became syn- 

onymous with wealth, power, and banking. For generations, 

the Rothschild house was Europe's most powerful banking 

family and it remains influential in the international banking 

community today. Sharing the Rothschild house in Frankfurt 

during its early days was the Schiff family. The Schiffs also 

became a major banking family and they have done business 

with the Rothschilds all the way up until our own time. 

Control of the Rothschild house, as well as many other 

banking houses, passed from father to son(s) over the 

generations. The Rothschilds, Schiffs, and other banking 

families were truly part of a hereditary "paper aristocracy" 

to which Brotherhood revolutionaries had given a great deal 

of power when they established the inflatable paper money 

system and its attendant central banks. 

Many historians writing about the Rothschild family focus on the fact that Mayer Amschel was Jewish. The Rothschilds have been important supporters of Jewish causes throughout the family's history. Less frequently mentioned is the fact that the Rothschilds were also associated with German Freemasonry. This association apparently began with Mayer Amschel, who accompanied William IX on several trips to the Masonic lodges. Whether or not Mayer actually became a member is uncertain. It is known that his son, Solomon (founder of the Rothschild bank in Vienna), had become a Freemason. According to Jacob Katz, writing in his book, Jews and Freemasons in Europe, 1723-1939, the Rothschilds were one of the rich and powerful Frankfurt families appearing on a Masonic membership list in 1811. The Scottish degrees used in the German lodges were Christian in nature. This created problems for Jewish men like Rothschild who may have wanted to participate. To solve the dilemma, efforts were made in Jewish communities to change certain rituals in order to make Freemasonry acceptable to Jews. Special Jewish lodges were created, such as the "Melchizedek" lodges named in honor of the Old Testament priest-king whose importance we discussed in an earlier chapter. Those who belonged to the Melchizedek lodges were said to be members of the "Order of Melchizedek." This was an extremely interesting development, for across the Atlantic Ocean the name of Melchizedek was about to be resurrected on the American continent during what some people believe to have been a series of significant UFO episodes. Those episodes gave the world a new religion: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church.