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This chapter considers the Law of the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism. It considers the question of why this law was needed at all, because the other repressions already facilitated the punishment of Freemasons and Communists. The answer lies in the regime's fear of the nebulous power of the ‘Judaeo–Masonic–Communist’ world conspiracy. The regime not only believed that this conspiracy had helped cause the ‘rebellion’ but that it continued to threaten Spain even after victory in 1939. However, the chapter reveals that the LRFC dealt almost exclusively with Freemasons; LRFC investigators paid considerable attention to Madrid as it was the home of the second largest Masonic community in Spain after Andalucia before the civil war.

This chapter describes that the new hope brought by Paul Doumer's government to the region only reignited internecine fighting among Frenchmen of differing religious and political orientations. It adds that at the center of these conflicts, again, were the Catholic missionaries. It also talks about the Dreyfus affair in the empire, exposing a deep rift in French society. It notes that catholic missionaries identified Freemasonry as posing the greatest threat to their work. It also tells that Freemasonry had a profound connection with republican politics throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. It clarifies that in most of their accounts, Freemasons wanted to show that missionary misdeeds stemmed from intolerance.

This chapter traces the rise of the African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia, one of the early churches to describe itself as “African”, and the progenitor of black Baptist churches in Canada, Sierra Leone, and much of the British Caribbean. The chapter then considers two institutions founded by black New Englanders at roughly the same time — African Freemasonry and the African Union Societies of Newport and Providence, Rhode Island — and traces their distinct but parallel efforts to build “African” institutions and identities. Leaders of these institutions sought to reconcile their deep faith in a Christian God with the prevalence of “paganism” in Africa, reaching toward a belief that American slavery represented God's plan for bringing the light of true religion to the Dark Continent. This conviction gave all three groups a shared stake in the efforts of those Black Loyalists who would move to Sierra Leone in 1792.

This chapter focuses on Gerald Brosseau Gardner, the person most prominently associated with the appearance of modern pagan witchcraft. Gardner had a keen interest in the supernatural, which led him to read widely about religion and the occult and to discuss them repeatedly with like-minded people, and to gain first-hand experience of Freemasonry, spiritualism, Buddhism, and tribal magical practices. He also had an equally active antiquarianism, which propelled him to become a pioneer of Malay archaeology, numismatics, maritime history and folklore. He also became an author of respected monographs in these fields.

This chapter traces the widespread growth of secret societies in Europe from the 18th century onwards. Members were initiated into these societies upon an oath to observe confidentiality of proceedings, and which contained a strong ceremonial element. The source, and thereafter the main tradition, of these was Freemasonry. By the opening of the 20th century, millions of British men, and hundreds of women, were accustomed to working within closed groups which initiated newcomers through a process that involved blindfolding, a series of challenges and responses, admission to a ritual space, the taking of an oath of secrecy, and the passage of an ordeal. All imparted arcane knowledge to those who were accepted, and all claimed to represent an immemorial body of wisdom and practice — commonly called ‘craft’ — which had been handed down in private, through initiation and training, from the beginning of recorded time. All had incorporated actual historical figures and events into their own mythological past.

This chapter examines 18th-century Freemasonry and illuminism and its influence on the history of Western esotericism. After Rosicrucianism supplied the myth of a secret society cultivating hermetic sciences, Freemasonry provided a vehicle for the historical transmission of theosophical and alchemical traditions. The Illuminist societies were high-grade varieties of Freemasonry and they were overtly esoteric in their ideas and practices.

This chapter examines ritual magic from 1850 to the present. The modern occult revival of the 19th century was a complex phenomenon with widespread causes. Romanticism stimulated interest in the mysterious and the unknown, which in turn created a cultural receptivity to Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and magic. Freemasonry also served as an important factor in the occult revival by serving as a channel of Hermetic wisdom. The growth of fringe Masonry also reflected the contemporary revival of ritualism in the Anglican Church and this movement significantly influenced the restoration of sacramental worship to Anglican devotion and the revival of religious orders.

This chapter examines the influence of the theosophy works of Helena Blavatsky on the revival of Western esotericism in the modern era. The Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Blavatsky played a vital role in propagating esotericism in the modern era. Theosophy was a major factor in the revival of the indigenous Western esoteric tradition and Blavatsky's writings presented the idea of an ancient wisdom handed down from prehistoric times by combining Neoplatonism, Renaissance magic, Kabbalah, Freemasonry, Greco-Roman mythology, religion, and Eastern religious doctrines.

This chapter explores how white male associations defined a new postwar identity for Natchez men, many of whom established local Lost Cause traditions. Freemasonry grew rapidly in the late antebellum era, with Mississippi showing the highest per capita rate of membership in the nation. Large numbers of white mostly middle-class men in search of a place to bond with other defeated Confederate warriors joined numerous Masonic orders and began forging new identities for themselves. The militia tradition in Natchez with its emphasis on competitive sports was another means of defining white manhood after the war. The Adams Light Infantry offered members a venue to bond with other men, while also initiating the white community’s first attempts to create a collective memory of the war. In their efforts to dominate public space and create memorial traditions, Natchez militia members also resorted to violent attacks against blacks they perceived as challenging white supremacy.

This chapter traces the discourses of African Lodge No. 459, the first Black Masonic lodge in the US. It argues that as part of the ‘first generation of Black leadership’ in the post American-Revolution US republic, Black Freemasons took up a ‘paradoxical and pivotal epistemological question’: how Black Americans should argue ‘not just for freedom but also their humanity’. The chapter illustrates how this question was framed by the denial of ‘equal’ incorporation of Black Americans as both ‘free’ members and ‘full’ citizens of the post American-Revolutionary US republic and by the correlated exclusion of early Black Freemasons from an already established and mainstream tradition of ‘White’ US Freemasonry. It shows how this founding generation of Black Freemasons were compelled to challenge not only these institutional exclusions, but also the correlated epistemic dehumanizations/exclusions derived from the dominant religio-secular narratives of the Western/US Enlightenment. It reveals the way this formative generation borrowed from, adapted, and/or re-imagined these dominant religio-secular narratives on behalf of both their ‘public culture’ struggles/mobilizations against their population's enslavement and overall subjugation/condemnation during the post-Revolutionary period, as well as within their related ‘private’ struggles/mobilizations against the already-established tradition of ‘White’ US Freemasonry.

A rhetorical militancy has long been a component of Catholic rhetoric, but in different contexts the martial allusions surrounding the concept of the “Ecclesia Milatans” have had different consequences and meanings. The 19th-century Polish Church was hardly militant in the colloquial sense, and as the battles fought at the time were usually against generic sources of temptation rather than specific earthly foes. But with the rise of Catholic social activism and with the gradual rapprochement between the Church and the nationalist right, metaphors drawn from more earthly forms of warfare proliferated, even in sermons and devotional publications. The Second Vatican Council tried to pull Catholics away from this vocabulary, preferring to talk about the People of God rather than the Ecclesia Militans, but in Poland the old rhetoric persisted. At times the battles were discussed with aggressive rhetoric about seizing the initiative and vanquishing the opponents of God; at other times Catholic authors preferred defensive images of encirclement or siege. Either way, the Polish Church was at war.

This chapter discusses elements from Russia’s esoteric tradition that reappear in new form in the writings of the Cosmists. Topics include the search for “Deep Wisdom” in medieval Russia; popular superstition and folk magic; alchemy, Freemasonry, and Rosicrucianism during and after the time of Peter the Great; Theosophy, Anthroposophy, and other nineteenth- and twentieth-century esoteric movements.

This chapter addresses conspiracy theories and the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most infamous ‘instructions’ telling adherents of the Jewish faith how they were to build the Sanhedrin's global empire. The Protocols was supposedly based on lectures given at the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897. The aim of the book was to show that the perpetrators of all social upheavals were Jews, who expected to conquer the world with the aid of revolution. In inter-war Poland, belief in the omnipotence of the masonic lodges and international Jewry found its adherents among historians and journalists associated with the nationalist right, the Endecja (National Democratic Party). In the opinion of modern supporters of the conspiracy theory of history, Freemasonry, always directed by Jews, constituted a factor in all the more important events in the political, social, and cultural history of Poland, Europe, and the western world.

This chapter considers Crowley's Masonic contacts. It tries to separate the facts from the numerous myths that surround Crowley and Freemasonry. In the next section, it studies Crowley's relationship with Freemasonry, which parallels his differing views of himself as the Great Wild Beast 666, the great magician and prophet, and the decent British gentleman. It also considers how Freemasonry allowed him to become a part of the respected establishment of British society.