The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 9 - Masonic and Anti-Masonic Literature 749
a more complex sentence like "he lives in the son," or if one utters a secret word
such as Macbenac, even if the meaning is unclear. Especially, if it is unclear,
because this raises the tension. Now, there is a loss of secrecy and atmosphere.
The translation of the "Lost Word" Jehovah with "faith" is simply false; the
Masons do not go on a quest for faith but for the unutterable word, the name of
God, the word which the Master Mason in the Hiramic Legend refused to tell
and that he died for. The erasure of the passwords Tubalcain, Shiboleth and
Acacia for anti-semitic reasons is a damage to the ritualistic tradition, and it is
not obvious why acacia has not been substituted by "evergreen" or simply by the
German translation Akazie, denoting only a plant without a Jewish background.
It is interesting that the Grand Master has included the expression "bis auf
Widerruf," perhaps in the hope of restituting the old usages some day.
In the principles of the "Nationaler Christlicher Orden Friedrich der Große",
the orientation to the Fascist ideology becomes evident in the choice of words
and the pseudo-historic derivation of the cultic elements:
1. Wir bekennen uns zu einem deutschen Christentum [sic] mit dem
der altarische Lichtkult unserer Urväter viel Gemeinsames hat.
Symbole sind uns das Licht und das Kreuz.
2. Wir bekennen uns zum Ideal rein deutschen Volkstums, als dessen
Hauptsymbole wir den Hammer Thors und das Schwert der
Wehrhaftigkeit wählten.
3. Wir glauben an den Aufstieg des deutschen Volkes durch deutsche
Arbeit. Ihre wichtigsten Sinnbilder sind uns die alten deutschen
Steinmetzsymbole des Winkelmaßes und des Zirkels. 1870
The history of Freemasonry is not traced back to the Greek and Egyptian
mysteries as it was common among the Freemasons, but to the Germans'
predecessors' "altarian light cult." "Altar" as a positive image of veneration and
"light cult" as a seemingly harmless form of Pagan worship create the impression
of a Proto-Germanic ritual which still bears many features in common with
German Christianity. The symbols of light and cross are taken from Christianity,
and although the light (e.g. the Three Great Lights, the Three Lesser Lights) is
symbolically stressed in Freemasonry, it is given new importance. Maybe the
name of the one porch pillar can thus be explained. The cross in many different
shapes has always been employed in Freemasonry, but here it equally receives a
Christian interpretation. The gavel is seen as an allusion to "Thor's hammer," the
Nordic god hinting at the "deutsches Volkstum," however, historically gavels
have ever been a device of power, already for Egyptian princes, and Thor is not
the first symbol bearer, he just fits perfectly into the Nazi ideology. The Masonic
sword (e.g. the Tyler's Sword) as an image of "Wehrhaftigkeit" underlines the
1870 Quoted from Neuberger, vol. II, p. 296; cited from "Allgemeine Grundsätze des 'Nationalen
Christli- chen Ordens Friedrich der Große' ".