THE MITHRAISM-FREEMASONRY

CONNECTION
"Ursus Major"
I. BASIC PREMISE AND BACKGROUND
Freemasonry is transmogrified Mithraism. One must understand that the Picti (the
inhabitants of Caledonia, before it became Scotland), copied the Romans in just about
everything: from kilts (taken from the Roman basic tunic), to bagpipes (what the
Romans marched to), even to the sporran, which is based on the chain-mail to protect a
legionary's groin, now transformed into a purse!
The Romans spent centuries on that wall! They didn't spend all their time fighting the
Picti. They simply enforced a cordon sanitaire: a zone in which the Picti were not
allowed to dwell. If the Picti were rash enough to build a village in this zone, the Romans
went and burned it down. The Romans expected to be obeyed, and they played hard-
ball! (An interesting aside is that if a Pictus saw the Romans coming, he would use a
burning cross to warn the others the Romans were on their way, so a burning cross as a
warning comes from deep inside Race-Memory.) But, if the Picti played by Roman rules,
they got along o.k. Sometimes they traded—selling POWs was a wide-spread commerce
at that time, and the Picti often fought among themselves—the Romans cash were
buyers. (Picti prices for captives were cheap.) Over the centuries, these Picti got to know
a lot about the Romans, and they copied a lot from them. (After all, the Romans were
top dog, and that's usually who gets copied.)
The major cult among the Roman legionaries was a cult which had come out of the
Middle East called "Mithraism." Mithra is an ancient Indo- European name. (Mitra is
still one of the principal gods in Hinduism, which is a lot older than Judaism or
Christianity.) As this cult moved westward out of Chaldea, the figure of Mithra changed.
He looked more and more Graeco-Roman, and not like a Persian or Hindu. The name is
about the only thing that stuck—that and the iconography. Mithra was depicted slaying
a bull, and in the carving were usually also a dog and a scorpion. (The above illustration
is from a Mithraeum. There's also a full-scale Mithraeum at Yale Univ., in New Haven,
CN—in case one wants to take a look.)
Mithra became identified with the sun, so much so that (for religious purposes), by the
time of the Emperor Diocletian (~305), Sol Invictus, Mithra was proclaimed "The
Protector of the Empire." The Unconquerable Sun and Mithra were fused. (Diocletian
was an old soldier himself and a Mithra follower: one who hated Christianity and
pursued the last great effort to stamp out this Death-Cult.)
Why this fascination with Mithra and the symbols (most Mithraea were caves or
grottos)? Nothing particular about the rites—because the Christians simply incorporated
ALL of them into Christianity, and made up the requisite mumbo-jumbo to account for
the Seven Mithraic Sacraments becoming the Seven Christian Sacraments. (Note:
sacramentum is a military term: it means the solemn oath, the oath a soldier swears to
obey without question.) The Christians even took the word—and they made Mithra's
birthday Christ's birthday: the winter solstice—December 25th (at the time). The tie-in
between Mithraism and Christianity is well indicated in Christian lore.
Remember the story of the Three Wise Men, or Kings, or Magi? Well, Magus is the word
for astrologer: star-gazer, wizard. They "followed the new star." How did that get in
Christian lore? Because it came from Mithraism. The Magi were the ones who
promulgated Mithraism, and so they had to fit in Christian lore, which is a hodge-podge
of Jewish, Hellenistic, and (most importantly) Mithraic lore.
The Magi were star gazers and had been for hundred and hundreds of years. (Aster is
the Greek [and also Late Latin] word for "star." They named their calling "astrology":
knowledge of the stars. When real science took up the subject, it had to devise a different
name; "astrology" was polluted. One could have "biology, zoology, mineralogy" but not
"astrology," because that was a superstition; so they came up with astronomy, which
means "star measurement"!)
The Magi had been studying the stars a long time; so long in fact that their records went
back to when the Vernal Equinox occurred when the sun was in Taurus: the
constellation represented by a bull. But the equinoxes change. The earth "wobbles" on
its axis, producing The Precession of the Equinoxes. The ancients discovered this about
130 B.C.E. They knew what, but they didn't why. (It wasn't until Isaac Newton, that the
why became known—and that lay far in the future.)
According to the "science" of the time, the earth was a sphere at the center of the
universe. The sun, moon, plants, and (most distant) celestial sphere (stars) moved
around the earth. The Equinox, the start of spring and new life, had occurred when the
sun was in Taurus; but a Mighty God, mightier than any other, had reordered the whole
universe, "slaying" the bull and moving the equinox into Aries. (Where it was when
Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales: "the sonne its course through the Ram [Aires] hath
runne ..." Now, it is Pisces, on its way to Aquarius—you know "The Age of Aquarius." It
takes about 26,000 years to complete the Precession; about 2,000 years in each zodiac
sign.

II. CONDITIONS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

By the time of Diocletian the term "Senate and the People of Rome" had become a
pathetic joke. The Rome of Scipio Africanus, that hardy Celto-Germanic stock, had been
mongrelized into non-existence. Well over a century before, Martial wrote, "Orontes in
Tiberem defluxit!" ("The Orontes [a river in Syria] empties into the Tiber [the river that
runs through Rome]!") The city had been overwhelmed by aliens. The Multi-Cultural
Mongrolians of its day left it only two things: the Latin language (now corrupted) and
the institution of the Empire. Otherwise, nothing about Rome was Roman! Alien races,
alien cultures, alien Emperors (Diocletian was a Bosnian!) had overwhelmed the native
Roman stock. It became so absurd that the Emperor Caracalla made every freeman of
the Empire a Roman citizen. One was a Roman "citizen" or a slave; there was no in-
between.
Amidst this chaos, there developed an intense longing for some symbol of unity, and the
all-powerful, unconquerable sun had been chosen as this symbol, named Sol Invictus.
But the ability to move even the sun from one position to another indicated a Supreme
Godhead, and so the sun was proclaimed Sol Invictus—Mithra, Protector of the Empire.
Mithra was regarded by the army as their god, and the Empire depended upon the
legions for its survival. The sun was the brightest object in the sky, but the brightest
object in the celestial sphere—the sphere of fixed stars—was (and is) the constellation
Orion, and Mithaics held it depicted Mithra's triumph over Taurus. What is the
brightest star in the night sky? Sirius, the dog-star in the constellation Canus Major,
who faithfully accompanies Orion (Mithra) in the slaying of Taurus. The scorpion? Ah,
when the vernal equinox was in Taurus, the autumnal equinox was in Scorpio. (It's now
in Virgo, moving toward Leo). So as Mithra eliminates the bull, his dog eliminates the
scorpion. Hence the hymn of the Legio XXX Macedonia, which put Rome above all
nations and Mithra above all.
Macedonia? That's not Rome. That's the wild area north of Greece, where Alexander the
Great came from. Why does the 30th legion have this name? Because the legions were
no longer recruited from among (nominal) Romans. Army life was too hard, for those
getting their "welfare" and blood-soaked "Super-Bowls" from the state. Pan et circenses:
bread and circuses! No one used to that was going to stand duty at a frozen wall in the
far north of Britain, so that after 20 years of service, he'd be given a small farm and a
smaller pension. The legions were drawn from semi-civilized tribes, able to endure the
hardship entailed. (A legionary on the march lived off porridge: oatmeal without milk,
sugar or butter to make it tasty. How'd you like to march from Scotland to Iraq, living off
unflavored oatmeal? Only a rugged semi-savage could endure the hardships required of
a legionary. And one should remember that the Roman Emperor [from Bosnia] was
once a common soldier also.)

III. WHAT WAS MITHRAISM?

It was a soldier's cult (women were not allowed), in praise of the all-highest, most
powerful of gods. The services took place in caves or grottos. There was a baptism,
which ushered one into the Militia Mithrae, the Army of Mithra in the eternal struggle
against Evil. A communion too, but bread and water, not wine. There were also "ranks":
a novice was called a Corax (a "crow"). Why it's not known. What is known is that the
sacredote was called Pater and had taken a vow of celibacy. As faithful service in the
legion led to "veteran's benefits," so faithful service in the Army of Mithra led to Eternal
Salvation. The dogma of Mithraism is hard to reconstruct, because there was no
supreme authority. At most there was a Pater patrum, a sort of bishop, but nothing
beyond that. The myths have Mithra as a warrior from conception (from a rock), to
combat Ahriman: Evil and Death. Mithra was both the creator of man and his mediator
between this creation and the transcendental gods: Infinite Time and Light (Mazda).
Another myth is Mithra dining with Sol Invictus and their being fused as a result. What
rank a man held in the outside world had no significance: only the Mithraic rank
counted. A slave might be the superior of a Senator in the Army of Mithra. (One must
remember this. We will see it again.) The parallels with Christianity are striking. The
total exclusion of women was a great weakness; furthermore, the Christians held that
Christ was an historical person as well as being God incarnate. There was another great
difference: NO JEWISH LORE IN MITHRAISM: The Mosaic mythology was totally
absent.
When Constantine first assumed the Imperial Title, it was in the name of Sol Invictus.
Christianity's elevation as religion of the Empire was not immediate, and it came as a
complete surprise. Christians were a very small percentage of the population. There
were far more adherents to Mithraism. The pacifism of Christianity was not welcome in
the legions. Mithraism lingered there far longer than in any other segment of society.
Indeed, given the similar tenets and rituals, the Mithraic cult should have been easily
absorbed, especially as the Christians arranged that Mithra and Christ should have the
same birthday; but the legions didn't like the Jewish lore.
What was going on in the Mediterranean basin was not immediately felt at that frozen
wall across Roman Britannia. It's reasonable to assume that many Picti accepted
Mithraism. After all, all men were equal in the cult: Roman or Pictus, slave or free.
Certainly there were Picti who had, over the centuries, accepted Roman values as they
were later to accept Roman dress and implements, modifying them to their own design.
It should also be noted after the erection of Hadrian's Wall, the Antonine "wall" (more
an impressive earthen work than a wall) was erected and manned for a while. This
subjected areas of Caledonia to Romanizing (and Mithraism). When the Romans
abandoned the Antonine Wall and returned to the stone wall of Hadrian, no doubt a
number of Romanized Caledonians joined in the evacuation. That there were Picti in the
Army of Mithra seems certain.

IV. POST-ROMAN BRITAIN

The separation of Britain from the continent has been the single most important factor
in its history. During the circa 400 years of Roman occupation, there were a great many
events which served to isolate Britain from occurrences in other parts of the Empire. On
more than one occasion, the local commander tried to set himself up as an independent
potentate, requiring action by the Imperial government and resulting in a localized civil
war, which effected the Roman residents, but not the local Celts. This estrangement was
already in place when Constantine pulled his coup of installing Christianity as the state
cult and moving the capital east to "his" city of Constantinople. While there was a love-
hate relationship with Rome, Britain had nothing in common with the Eastern Empire.
Greek was virtually unknown (outside the drawing rooms of large landowners). The
Celts gladly cultivated the black walnut trees the Romans had brought from Persia [!],
but the violent squabbles of this new state cult, which didn't even know what its beliefs
were, held scant interest for the residents of Britain. If anything, it made Mithraism
(which at least was a known entity, and devoid of heresy as it had no dogma) that much
more attractive. Not that there were that many adherents, but those who were, were
mainly concentrated in the north, with many co-religionists in the legions stationed
along the wall.
Christianity was mainly limited to the south, that area closest to the continent. In 383
C.E., following the confusion of Julian and the all-too-brief pagan restoration, C.E.
Maximus, another imperial pretender, siphoned a number of troops from Britain. Then,
a few years later, Gaul was under Frankish rule, cutting off Britain from Rome itself.
Romano-Britons were left isolated. As their forces were meagre and manpower small,
they turned to hiring Saxons to repel other Saxons. This led to the two Saxon factions
coming to an "understanding" and both turning on Romano-Britain. (The legend of King
Arthur, a Roman of distinction rallying the Romano-Britons probably dates from this
era.) Still, Saxon force proved stronger, and as the Romano-Britons were being driven
west and north, the Celtic element began to predominate, as the Celts were always in the
majority and rarely bothered to learn Latin. The decline of Roman Britain meant the
extinction of the "Romano" and the severe restriction of the Britannic.
The situation in the north was somewhat different, as the Angles were the main
Germanic tribe, not the Saxons. The transition to Christianity among the Romano-
Briton-Caledonian population near the wall had resulted in virtually a unique religion,
one in which the Pelagian heresy was the prevailing form. British-born Pelagius
preached a doctrine that Divine Grace played a small role in a man's salvation. This, of
course, would find favor among those still attached to Mithraism, because there is no
"Divine Grace" in Mithraism. Salvation is attained by consistency and courage in the
relentless war against Evil. In Ireland, a distinct brand of Christianity emerged, the
Celtic Church. It has its own rituals and dogmatic basis (including the distinctive "Celtic
Cross," which remains to this day). Eventually, the Celtic Church agreed to conform to
Roman rites and dogma, but the position of Christianity in the north was tenuous at
best; while in the south, once Christian Romano-Britain was thoroughly pagan, due to
the Saxon conquest.
Caledonia (Scotland) had to be re-converted by Irish monks (Columba being the most
famous), but the Caledonians tended to cling to the Roman ways: the legionary's tunic
became the kilt, etc. And as for Mithraism, it simply went underground: not practised,
but not forgotten: much like the "wee people" among the Irish Celts. The difference was
that this special diety was to re-emerge in substance, if not in form, with the appearance
of Scottish-rite Freemasonry.

V. THE EMERGENCE OF "SCOTLAND"

Scotland and Northumbria—those areas where Mithraism had been strong—were late in
adopting Christianity. The Scottish lowlands were subject to the Angles, Danes, and
Mercians. The highlands underwent Irish-Celtic settlement. (Scotus meant Irish.).
While the lowlands under Roman occupation had introduced Christianity in the late 4th
century, it was confined to small areas. Even by the 11th century, when St. Margaret
came from Anglo-Saxon England, she found Christianity in Scotland to be virtually a
unique form. There is scant history, as Norse raids left the monasteries in ruins.
Consolidation of these diverse tribes (clans) into a kingdom required nearly 200 years.
The Picti became absorbed, but the contrast between Nordic barbarism and Roman
civilization was so great, that much of what the Romans had accomplished probably
passed into folklore. As shown, the Scottish national dress was a remembrance of Rome.
The "unique" Christianity Margaret found in Scotland probably was a product of
Mithraic influences being mingled in.
The similarities between Mithraism and Christianity are very strong: a ritual of baptism,
a communion, and a central figure incarnating The Light and the Good, in perpetual
conflict with Evil. Margaret found that Scottish Christianity had the same date for
Christmas (birthday of Sol Invictus—Mithra) but a different date for Easter. The Scottish
Easter of her era coincided with the equinox, when Light assumed a greater portion of
the day than Dark. (Given its extreme northern location, the contrasts in seasonal
daylight in very dramatic in Scotland.) Unlike most European countries, there was no
great flowering of monastic life in Scotland. The Kingdom of Scotland received official
recognition only in 1328, when both the Pope and the King of England affirmed Robert I
the Bruce as "King of the Scots." The problem was that the papal bull, authorizing
coronation and unction (anointing) was not issued until six days after the death of
Robert the Bruce in 1329. For the remainder of its history as a totally independent
nation, the King of the Scots was beset by the encroachments of the English and the
defiant independence of the clans. Rarely in the course of Scottish history was the whole
country under the actual rule of the monarch. Clan independence meant the
preservation of clan folklore, and the re-emergence of Latin with the founding of
universities affirmed the echo of that distant Roman past.

VI. THE EMERGENCE OF FREEMASONRY

Freemasonry started as a type of "Y" among stone masons. Unlike other guilds, masons
didn't set up shop in a fixed place. A tailor had his shop, but a mason had to go where
structures were being built of stone. These were usually castles, cathedrals, and
monasteries (many more in England than in Scotland). This period saw the drawing up
of The Old Charges: a rule book for the lodges, which were indeed lodges: providing
food and shelter for the masons working on projects like Windsor Castle, etc. The oldest
one in existence comes from 1390, but it is known there were older ones, which did not
survive.
As Euclid and Roman writers had praised masons as true craftsmen (technoi in Greek:
like "technology," the science of skilled use), it was considered a fit calling for the
younger sons of minor nobility: an alternative to the celibate church, hence the term free
mason, as no person of servile origin could be a true mason, merely a bricklayer or hod-
carrier. In Anglo-Saxon times, King Athelstan had the lords draw up the "Constitution"
for these master craftsmen of genteel origin. As master masons were "genteel," a rather
fanciful history was invented for the guild: the Masonic Fraternity had built the
pyramids, the Temple of Solomon, on and on. This gave them "status" above, say, a
shoemaker. Masons were supposed to deport themselves as gentlemen, and were held in
high esteem.
As the wages of a true mason were much higher than a mere bricklayer, and masons
moved around a lot going to where the work was (one couldn't bring the castle to them),
there was the obvious temptation for one unqualified to pass himself off as a mason. To
prevent this, the masons developed secret handshakes and ways of knocking at the
lodge's door, to prevent pretenders from passing themselves off as true masons. This
was the era of Operative Masonry, when the lodges were indeed places of repose for
qualified stone masons.

VII. THE RISE OF "SPECULATIVE MASONRY"

The Masonic Guild was less rendered by the Reformation than most other guilds. They
were already a closely knit fraternity of sorts and were horrified at seeing people calling
themselves "Christians" massacring each other, being burned alive, tortured, over
something as absurd as whether King Henry (in England) should be allowed to remarry,
or Queen Mary (in Scotland) allowed to practice her faith. They didn't see much
"brotherly love" among the Christians, just a lot of heads being chopped off and the
beautiful monasteries they had built destroyed.
During the medieval period, Masons were required (translating out of the Middle
English of the time) to "love God, the Holy Church, and all Saints." (Notice there
nothing about the Bible.) In 1583, "saints" was dropped; and by 1717, the Constitution
had been simplified to "Moral Law" and to respect the religion in which all men agree,
[who are] Men of Honor and Honesty, irrespective of what Denomination or Persuasion
they profess. In an age when Catholics were being hunted in Holland and Sweden (and
treated like cattle in Ireland), and Protestants were still being burned in Spain, here was
the first profession of total toleration. (Jews were admitted after 1723.) In 1738, Pope
Clement XII forbad Catholics from becoming Masons, stating it was, "a pagan religion."
He was probably correct: Freemasonry being revamped Mithraism.
How do we know? Well, we don't know for sure: there's no specific connection between
the long vanished cult of the Roman legions and this new "fraternity," which required
merely the profession of belief in "A Supreme Architect of the Universe," but there are a
lot of indications—strong ones.

VIII. MITHRA DONS A POWDERED WIG

The most grandiose stone structure ever constructed in Britain was, and is, Hadrian's
Wall (much of it still standing): over 74 miles long, with mini-forts every mile. No
operative mason could have failed to be impressed by it. It was unprecedented, not only
in Britain but in the known world at the time. (The greater one in China wasn't known
until much later.) Obviously, a mason would have been curious about those who could
construct such an edifice, and in learning about who built it—now relegated to folklore—
they would have encountered that other aspect of the folklore: that those who built it
were in the service of The Supreme Architect of the Universe, who brought forth the
celestial spheres—Mithra.
Mithraism was a religion with no dogma, no "original sin," no revelation, no history of
absurd "miracles," totally tolerant, stressing benevolence (no "divine grace"), possessing
ranks as (secret) initiation rites in consecrated Mithraism—and barring women. The
Speculative (or Accepted) Masons didn't subscribe to some of the Mithraic dicta; they
subscribed to ALL of it—including barring women (who formed their own auxiliary
organization called "Daughters of the Eastern Star"). If sheer coincidence, there's a
staggering amount of it. I'd call 100% a staggering amount.
From the formation of the first Grand Lodge in 1717, Freemasonry quickly spread
through out Europe and European colonies. As in ancient Mithraism, the rank of the
individual in the secular world had no direct significance in the Masonic lodge (although
kings, who happened to be Masons, usually found it easier to attain the rank of Grand
Master of their lodge than others). By the latter portion of the 18th century, it was
usually easier to ask which luminary was not a Mason, rather than which was. Despite
the ban of the Catholic Church (repeated in 1758 by Pope Benedict XIV), Holy Roman
Emperor Francis I was a Mason. This resulted in a rather sticky problem, as Vienna lay
in the Archduchy of Austria, whose ruler was his wife, Maria-Theresa. She was badgered
by the cardinal to suppress these "neo-pagans." The Masons still preserved their
identifying handshake and knock on the lodge door, to verify they were truly Masons. To
this was added another "special knock": that of Maria-Theresa's police! This provided
ample time for her husband to exit via the back door, before the front door was opened
to a very patient police chief; thereby avoiding putting the Holy Roman Emperor under
arrest for participating in forbidden rituals. (How would one handle a wife arresting her
husband—when he happened to be the Holy Roman Emperor?)
It was no less a luminary than Frederick the Great who coined the term "Scottish Rite."
It seemed to differ from the vague "York rite" (which didn't mean much of anything), in
that it had more grades. Like Mithraism, Freemasonry had a number of levels, each with
an arcane name and a secret "trial" as a form of initiation or elevation. The Scottish Rite
became the principal one on the continent and in the U.S., with a host of levels up to the
33rd degree, which was purely honorary. Again, like Mithraism, benevolence was the
prime focus. The French Lodge, Grande Orient removed even the requirement that one
profess a belief in a "Supreme Architect." It had no qualifications or disqualifications
whatsoever. The sole aspect was the stress on benevolence.
Mozart was a devoted Mason, as was his father—and Haydn too. George Washington
took his Masonic affiliations very seriously. He wouldn't set foot inside a Christian
church, but was the Grand Master of two lodges. With Ben Franklin, it was three: one
also in France. The Prince of Wales (later George IV) was Grand Master of the Grand
Lodge; several kings of Sweden and Denmark were also at one time Grand Master of this
London- based Grand Lodge, and all the future monarchs of the U.K. from George IV
through George VI were Grand Masters. (Queen Elizabeth II, being female, is not
allowed to be a Mason: Mithraism casts a long shadow.)

IX. FREEMASONRY: THE FLACK-CATCHER

Freemasonry has two things going against it: it definitely isn't a Christian institution
(which makes it anathema to Bible-Thumpers), and it has the residuum of the Mithraic
secret initiation rites. This "secrecy" has made it anathema to totalitarian regimes. In
went from being banned in the Third Reich to being banned in the Soviet-puppet G.D.R.
(Totalitarian regimes don't look fondly on "secret" societies, but few have been as silly as
the Nazi Anti-Masonic Expo, which "showed" the "poisoned pen" the Mason Goethe
used to murder Schiller [?]!) Funny no one ever comes up with allegations that the Elks
or Rotarians are bent on world domination. (I'm not so sure I'd object to a world
dominated by neo-Mithraics.) What makes Freemasonry unique is that it does not
accept the Mosaic mumbo-jumbo. The "Chinese Wall" between membership and
religious tenets is older and stronger in Freemasonry than in The U.S. Constitution
(which was written by a much of Masons, for the most part).

X. CONCLUSION
About 400 C.E. Hadrian's Wall was abandoned. But it stood, and it reminded. It
reminded those who were kept out by it and those protected by it of a concept called
"civilization." It passed not only into folklore but also into the Collective Unconscious, or
the Race-Culture; and with it went the concept of a deity, whom those lonely men from a
far off portion of the world worshiped: a soldier's god, a man's god, The Greatest Builder
of them All. These lonely men served in Europe's army, carrying their Eagles. This army
they served with their stamina and with their swords. They also served in another army,
the Militia Mithrae, which they served with their dedication and acts of kindness: that
there be more Good in the world than Evil, and that eventually Good would overwhelm
Evil. No god commanded them to do it; they were volunteers.
Stones last, as does the memory of good men, among those who will remember. Did
some remember this non-judgmental, tolerant, and effective deity, and—in their own
way—follow the example these lonely men on a remote wall had set: an example of
loyalty, bravery, obedience, and benevolence?
... I tend to believe so: U.M.

Source Unknown