November 17, 2018 Posted by Simon HarrisProtocols Project
I published my first Protocols Project article on October 13th 2018, which means I have been working pretty much exclusively on the project for a little over a month. I must admit the project is turning out to be much more complex and challenging than I expected when I began and it has led me down some very unexpected avenues. However, with the publication of my article on Protocol XII (out of twenty-four) about Control of the Press last weekend, I am now just past the half-way stage and I think I can begin to offer some very tentative conclusions at least about the nature of the organisation behind The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion if not yet about the origins of the text itself.
An Anti-Semite Forgery?
The immediate impression most people have when they first look at the text of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is that it is proof of a sinister Jewish plot to destroy Christian Europe and the rest of Western Civilisation. This was certainly my impression when I first read The Protocols late last year and it was also the opinion of Sergei Nilus, who first published them as the last chapter of his book The Great within the Small and Antichrist in 1905. This view was supported by many others, including Henry Ford, who published the complete text of the Protocols in his newspaper the Dearborn Independent in the 1920s. In fact, the subtitle of the 1921 Britons edition of The Protocols that I’m using in this series is subtitled “The Jewish Peril”.
The standard response to these claims is that The Protocols are a forgery designed to whip up anti-Semitism and anyone who has the temerity to read them, let alone who is interested in researching into them and finding out what they really are, is almost by definition a virulent anti-Semite. To be perfectly honest, despite being aware of the disproportionate levels of Jewish power and influence, particularly in politics, banking and the media, I have never had anything in particular against Jewish people and I have no skin in the game in this regard. I simply want to know what The Protocols are.
As Henry Ford himself said in 1921 “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are 16 years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time.” or as Times editor Wickham Steed wrote in his editorial entitled “The Jewish Peril, a Disturbing Pamphlet: Call for Inquiry” in 1922: “What are these ‘Protocols’? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans and gloated over their exposition? Are they forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in part fulfilled, in part so far gone in the way of fulfilment?”
Both these points of view are still relevant today, nearly a century later, and that is why I’m interested in them. If we can identify the authors and origins of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, we will better understand the hidden forces that seem to move our world and perhaps we can to something to stop their plans for a New World Order.
My tentative view is that Sabbatean-Frankism was the inspiring force behind the Rothschilds and then later Communism and Zionism. There were also, for the want of a better word, non-European influences on the various supposedly Gentile groups discussed here. As the project develops, I plan to research the roots of these influences and trace Sabbatean-Frankism at least as far back as the Messianic Judaism expressed in the Lurianic Kabbalah.
In this article, I’m just pulling a few strand together and concentrating on the founding of the Illuminati in 1776. The accompanying picture shows an early Illuminati initiation ceremony and the participants certainly don’t look very Jewish to me.
The Knights Templar
The first time it occurred to me that The Protocols might be something other than a solely Jewish conspiracy was when I noticed the frequently mentioned connections between the speaker and his audience and Freemasonry. Like many people, I have always taken a casual interest in Esotericism and the Occult, which is not surprising as they are topics that are strongly pushed by the media.
In the 1990s, I read Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln’s “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”, on which Dan Brown based his bestseller “The Da Vinci Code”, so I was aware of the gnostic influences on the Knights Templar. However, my interest in the topic ran a little deeper because of the fact that I live in Barcelona and my long-standing interest in the history of Catalonia, which was a medieval Templar stronghold because the Counts of Barcelona were involved in the fight against Islam. In fact, I’ve spent holidays doing the Cathar route around Carcassonne in what is now southern France and have also visited all the Templar castles in the south of Catalonia so I have first hand knowledge of the locations behind the history.
In September 1213, Pere or Peter II the Catholic, Count of Barcelona and King of Aragon, was killed at the Battle of Muret by the Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort’s troops, who were fighting the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in Occitania, which was then under Aragonese control. Pere II’s five-year-old son and heir, Jaume or James I was under the tutelage of Simon de Montfort until Pope Innocent III insisted that he was handed over to Guillem de Montredó, the head of the Knights Templar in Spain and Provence and a long-standing ally of the Crown of Aragon.
It was the Templars who helped the young King Jaume regain control of his kingdom and later helped him conquer both Mallorca and Valencia, where they kept a fifth of all conquered territories. The Templars remained closely associated with the Crown of Aragon until their abolition by Pope Clement V on Friday 13th October 1307 by which time they had amassed an enormous fortune and had effectively become the Vatican’s bankers.
The official reason for the suppression of the Templars were the accusations made against them of homosexuality, spitting on the cross and worshipping Baphomet but clearly their financial power was an important factor, particularly to Philip IV of France, who was in debt to the order. In fact, they were also accused of usury, credit inflation and fraud, all of which were prohibited in Christianity and were commonly associated with Jewish moneylenders and tax-farmers.
Where the Templars picked up these practices is anyone’s guess but the order’s full name is the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. The Occult connections with King Solomon and the Temple have been copiously documented. For example, the Hexagram or Seal of Solomon is not only the Satanist “As above, so below” symbol but also the Zionist symbol known as the Star of David, which now embellishes the Israeli flag, as well as the sign that was originally used by the Rothschilds and from which they take their name.
Freemasons
Many Templar leaders, such as Jacques de Molay, were executed during the suppression but many escaped and only a small part of their wealth was ever recovered. One theory on the origin of Freemasonry claims direct descent from the historical Knights Templar through its final fourteenth-century members who allegedly took refuge in Scotland and aided Robert the Bruce in his victory at Bannockburn.
Although this theory is usually rejected by both Masonic authorities and historians due to lack of evidence, it is evident that Freemasonry retains many symbols and rituals not only from the Knights Templar but from other military orders, such as the Constantinian Order and the Knights of Malta, as well. In fact, one of the Freemason youth organisations is called DeMolay International after the executed Templar leader.
The standard narrative suggests that the Freemasons were infiltrated by Jewish Illuminati in the late 18th century. This may be true but my feeling is that Freemasonry was already fertile ground and that in the late 18th century, when the infiltration took place, the higher level Freemasons were openly receptive to such infiltration.
In fact, section two of Protocol XV, which is subtitled Ruthless Suppression, says the following:
The institutions of any fresh secret society will also be punishable by death; but those secret societies which exist at the present time and which are known to us, which are serving and have served our purpose, we will dismiss and exile their members to remote parts of the world. Such is the manner in which we will deal with any Gentile Freemasons who may know more than will suit our convenience. Such masons whom we may for some reason or other pardon, we shall keep in continual fear of being sent into exile. We will pass a law which will condemn all former members of secret societies to be exiled from Europe, where we shall have the centre of our government.
The Jesuit Conspiracy
The other main theory is that rather than Jews or Zionists, it is the Jesuits who were the authors of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and that the Vatican is the driving force behind the New World Order. As far as I know this theory was first put forward by Leo H. Lehmann in his 1942 book “Behind the Dictators” and currently the main proponent is Eric Jon Phelps, who wrote “Vatican Assassins”. Furthermore, many conspiracy websites feature pyramids representing the New World Order hierarchy, which are crowned by either the current Pope, who happens to be the first Jesuit Pope in history, or the Black Pope, currently Arturo Sosa, who is the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, so the theory holds some sway.
Apparently, Leo Herbert Lehmann was an Irish author and editor, who was ordained a Catholic priest in 1918 and after serving in Europe and South America as well as spending a period as a negotiator in legal matters at the Vatican, he went to the United States, where he converted to Protestantism and became the editor of The Converted Catholic Magazine. However, Lehmann is clearly not an Irish name and a quick look at the surnames of his co-authors, Leonard Lewin on Report from Iron Mountain and Naeim Giladi on Behind the Dictators, suggests more than a passing association with Jews.
Furthermore, Amazon cites Leo H. Lehmann as co-author with the Jewish-sounding Daniel Hale Feldman of Qabalah: The Mystical Heritage of the Children of Abraham. I’m curious to know why an Irish Protestant, who has converted from Roman Catholicism, is writing about the Jewish esoteric system that served as inspiration for both Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank unless he is in fact a crypto-Jew and engaged in a campaign of disinformation.
Similarly, the admittedly left-leaning Rational Wiki describes Eric Jon Phelps as, among other things, a Christian fundamentalist Zionist and I must admit that although I haven’t read Vatican Assassins, in the interviews I’ve heard him give, I haven’t found his arguments very convincing. The argument that the Jesuits and the Vatican control the world’s banks and media and that the CIA and Mossad are run by Catholics doesn’t tally with the world I see around me.
However, although I am yet to look into the background of the Society of Jesus in depth, there are a number of reasons why it’s not unreasonable to think that the Jesuits could be involved in the Illuminati conspiracy not least that the founder of the Bavarian Illuminati was educated in a Jesuit school and was professor of canon law, a post only held by Jesuits until their suppression by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.
Ignatius of Loyola
In 1521, the founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola underwent a spiritual conversion and call to religious life while recovering battle wounds. According to Jean Lacouture in his 1995 book Jesuits, A Multibiography, Loyola had a series of visions, which appeared as “a form in the air near him and this form gave him much consolation because it was exceedingly beautiful … it somehow seemed to have the shape of a serpent and had many things that shone like eyes, but were not eyes. He received much delight and consolation from gazing upon this object … but when the object vanished he became disconsolate.” This doesn’t sound very Christian to me.
The following year, Loyola went to the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat in central Catalonia to confess his sins. The monastery is home to a Black Virgin, which has been associated with the celestial temptress Ishtahar, and the serrated mountain range of Montserrat itself has long had esoteric and occult associations.
The mountain is reportedly Mont-Salvat, the resting place of the Holy Grail according to the Parsifal legend, which takes us back to Cathars, Templars and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. In fact, in 1940, Reichsführer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, visited Montserrat because the Nazis believed that if they possessed the chalice they would be invincible.
Even today, esoteric groups perform rituals on Montserrat invoking the magnetic forces that arise from the earth to enhance the chakra of the human being. Local legend also has it that so many people disappear without trace on Montserrat because the range has interdimensional doors that allow people and spirits to move between this world and other dimensions.
From Montserrat, Loyola went to the nearby town of Manresa, where he spent a year in a cave, where he practised rigorous asceticism, praying for seven hours a day. Here he formulated the fundamentals of his Spiritual Exercises, which last for 28 to to 30 days and would later become the initiation into the Jesuit order, which he founded in 1539 and was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540.
Prior to the formation of the Society of Jesus, in 1929, after his preaching had induced ecstatic states in a group of female believers, Loyola was brought before the Inquisition accused of having sympathy with or possibly being a member of the Alumbrados, practitioners of a mystical form of Christianity, whose literally translates as the Enlightened Ones or Illuminati. He escaped with an admonition but its clear that the Church was suspicious of his association with and interest in the occult.
It is interesting that in many paintings Loyola is depicted with his forefinger over his lips to denote secrecy. This symbol is now commonly associated with the Illuminati.
Jesuit Oaths
The development of the Jesuits into what was effectively the undercover shock troops of the Vatican places them in the same tradition as previous military orders such as the Knights Templar and their embracement of the idea that “The Ends Justifies The Means” places them in a moral tradition that would come to prominence in the 19th century through Communism. Many writers who discuss the Illuminati, Henry Makow and William Guy Carr being cases in point, consider that the unifying ideology behind the various groups behind the promotion of a New World Order is Luciferianism rather than any particular ethnicity or religious ideology.
With regard to the Society of Jesus, this view is supported by a document that has become known as The Extreme Oath of Induction of the Jesuits, which originally published in 1689 work, Foxes and Firebrands by Robert Ware. As with many texts of this nature, The Protocols included, many people claim it be a forgery. However, it was reprinted in the book Subterranean Rome by Carlos Didier, translated from the French, which was published in New York in 1843. It was also cited in 1913 in the Journals of the 62nd U.S. Congress in the Contested election case of Eugene C. Bonniwell, against Thos. S. Butler, which suggests that, at one time, it was given credence at the highest levels. As late as 1967, former Jesuit priest Alberto Rivera described having undergone a similar ceremony when he was inducted into the higher echelons of the Society of Jesus.
I enclose a section here just to give you an idea of the kinds of practices the Jesuits are suspected of being involved in.
I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honour, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith of the Society of Jesus.
In confirmation of which, I hereby dedicate my life, my soul and all my corporal powers, and with this dagger which I now receive, I will subscribe my name written in my own blood, in testimony thereof; and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the Militia of the Pope cut off my hands and my feet, and my throat from ear to ear, my belly opened and sulphur burned therein, with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth and my soul be tortured by demons in an eternal hell forever.
A final point regarding, the Jesuits’ similarities with the Illuminati, especially if we accept that the main force behind the movement are a group of Jews, who unlike the majority are inspired by the Messianic ideas of Sabbatean-Frankism, comes in Coningsby, an 1844 novel by Benjamin Disraeli, who is best-known as the first Jew to become British Prime Minister, a position he occupied on two occasions between 1868 and 1880.
Early in his career, Disraeli was a prolific novelist and Coningsby, which was subtitled The New Generation, was the first of a trilogy of political novels. The main character is Henry Coningsby, an aspiring politician, but the novel’s best-known and most alluring character is Sidonia, who is apparently based on Disraeli’s contemporary Lionel de Rothschild, who was not only a member of the prominent banking family but also Member of Parliament for the City of London and apparently, the person who financed Karl Marx.
At one point in the novel (Book Four Chapter 15), Sidonia is talking to Coningsby about the importance of the Jewish race throughout history. “You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the Jews do not greatly participate,” he says and then goes on to say, “The first Jesuits were Jews”.
Illuminati
Based on the above, my suspicion is that the interests of the Jesuits and Sabbatean-Frankists, whose moral values have a lot in common with each other and with Luciferianism, merged around the time the Jesuits were suppressed by Pope Clement XIV’s Dominus ac Redemptor in 1773. Following this Adam Weishaupt, who had been educated at a Jesuit school, became professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt, a position that was held exclusively by the Jesuits until that time.
Weishaupt founded the Bavarian Illuminati on May 1st 1776, which incidentally is the reason why May Day became the traditional day for communists and worker “solidarity”.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about the early days of the Illuminati:
The actual character of the society was an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know: a party structure that was effectively adopted by some later groups.
Weishaupt was initiated into the Masonic lodge “Theodor zum guten Rath”, at Munich in 1777. His project of “illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice” was an unwelcome reform. He used Freemasonry to recruit for his own quasi-masonic society, with the goal of “perfecting human nature” through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government and organized religion. Presenting their own system as pure masonry, Weishaupt and Adolph Freiherr Knigge, who organised his ritual structure, greatly expanded the secret organisation.
This all sounds very Kabbalistic to me and I suspect that prior to the founding of the Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt had been in contact with the Rothschilds, most probably the nearby Frankfurt branch of the family, and Jacob Frank, who had declared himself Baron of Offenbach, which is just outside Frankfurt.
The Illuminati were apparently behind the French Revolution, which began in 1789, and when the Napoleonic Wars were approaching their end in 1814, Pope Pius VII issued an order restoring the Society of Jesus in the Catholic countries of Europe.
In 1832, during the Pontificate of Pope Gregory XVI, James Mayer de Rothschild and Carl Mayer von Rothschild made a loan of £400,000 (equivalent to £34.1 million in 2016) to the Holy See and effectively became the Vatican’s bankers.
A second loan was made in the early 1850s during the Pontificate of Pope Pius IX (“Pio Nono”) with the same members of the Rothschild family after the collapse of Giuseppe Mazzini’s short-lived revolutionary Roman Republic and the restoration of the Papal States. Interestingly, Mazzini reportedly took over leadership of the Illuminati after Adam Weishaupt’s death in 1830.
Closing Remarks
The plot thickens and evidently a great deal more research needs to be done to really get to the bottom of it. It is clear that the Illuminati and the groups behind the push for a New World Order are not solely Jewish in origin or composition.
This can be seen in their use of symbols. For example, the owl of Minerva can be seen on the original documents are used today by secret societies such as Bohemian Grove, which are not only gentile but also clearly wield a great deal of power.
At this stage of my investigations, I don’t yet have a complete understanding of the various groups and individuals involved in creating the New World Order. I do, however, reject claims by the likes of Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, who in his book The Synagogue of Satan appears to dismiss everyone in a position of power who has been involved in dubious behind the scenes activities as a crypto-Jew. This is clearly over-simplistic.
Given the how blatant the attacks on Christianity are, I am somewhat tempted by the view of both Henry Makow and William Guy Carr that what are facing is a Luciferian conspiracy. However, looking at the world we live in today, I see a society run by dishonest self-interested people of all all colours and creeds, who want to control the present and the future by lying about the past. There may be a good few Luciferians amongst them but the majority are just weak, stupid and selfish.
In order to understand this better, more research is necessary and that’s what I plan to do.