― The Priesthood / The Sacred Art ―
Freemasonry
Sun Worship in a Suit and Apron
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The Sacred Art did not die. It put on an apron and called itself a fraternity.
Introduction
This study is not an attempt to write the definitive history of Freemasonry. Others have written entire books on that subject. What this study does is answer four specific questions: What do Freemasons actually worship? Where did they get their Jewish symbolism? How are they connected to the Catholic system? And what did they build in America?
The answers, drawn from Freemasonry’s own published writings, trace the same thread that runs through every study on this page: sun worship. The Sacred Art did not die — it put on an apron and called itself a fraternity.
What Freemasons Actually Worship
You do not need to rely on critics or conspiracy theorists to understand what Freemasonry venerates. Freemasonry’s own published authorities state it plainly.
Albert Mackey, one of the most respected Masonic scholars, wrote that the sun is one of the most important symbols in Freemasonry. In his encyclopedic works, he states that the sun serves as a symbol of both enlightenment and “sovereign authority.” He notes that the lodge is illuminated symbolically by the sun and the moon, and that sun worship was the original, prototypical religion from which Freemasonry draws.
Albert Pike, the most influential author in the history of the Scottish Rite, wrote in Morals and Dogma:
The Sun is the ancient symbol of the life-giving and generative power of the Deity. To the ancients, light was the cause of life; and God was the source from which all light flowed; the essence of Light, the Invisible Fire, developed as Flame manifested as light and splendor. The Sun was His manifestation and visible image.
— Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma
The Master of the Lodge represents the sun. The Wardens represent the moon. The candidate in the Masonic ritual represents the sun descending into darkness and rising again — the death and rebirth cycle of the solar deity. Pike describes this directly:
In the Indian Mysteries, as the candidate made his three circuits, he paused each time he reached the South, and said, ‘I copy the example of the Sun, and follow his beneficent course.’
— Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma
The candidate in the Masonic initiation is reenacting the journey of the sun. This is not a metaphor applied from the outside by critics. This is Freemasonry’s own explanation of its own ritual, published in its own authoritative text.
Lucifer, the Light-Bearer
Pike’s most famous passage addresses the figure of Lucifer directly:
LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!
— Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 19th Degree
Manly P. Hall, another titan of Masonic literature, wrote in The Lost Keys of Freemasonry that the Mason who masters his craft discovers that “the seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands.” The light-bearer. The illuminator. The sun behind the sun.
Freemasonry does not claim to worship Satan in the popular sense. It claims to seek Light. But the light it seeks is the same light the Hermetic tradition has pursued since Egypt: the hidden knowledge of the divine, accessed through initiation, ritual, and degrees of ascending revelation. The sun is the visible symbol. Lucifer — the light-bearer — is the spiritual concept. And the entire system is built on the same promise the serpent made in the Garden: your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Elohim.
2 Corinthians 11:14
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
The Fake Jewish Roots
Freemasonry presents itself as an ancient tradition stretching back to the builders of Solomon’s Temple. The central drama of Masonic ritual — the murder and raising of Hiram Abiff, the legendary architect of the Temple — is framed as a continuation of a heritage rooted in ancient Israel. Masonic lodges feature the pillars of Jachin and Boaz (1 Kings 7:21), the brazen sea, and other Temple imagery.
But this connection to Solomon’s Temple is entirely fabricated. There is no historical evidence — none — that the operative stonemasons of medieval Europe had any connection to the builders of the Temple in Jerusalem. The legend of Hiram Abiff as told in Masonic ritual does not appear in Scripture. The biblical Hiram was a craftsman sent by the king of Tyre — not a secret keeper murdered for refusing to reveal hidden knowledge. The Masonic story is an invention, designed to give the fraternity an ancient and biblical pedigree it does not possess.
Borrowed from Kabbalah
What Freemasonry actually borrowed from Judaism is not the Torah. It is the Kabbalah — the Jewish mystical tradition that grew up after the Babylonian exile, heavily shaped by the pagan ideas the Jews absorbed in Babylon and Persia.
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life appears throughout Masonic symbolism. The ten sefirot — the emanations of Ein Sof — correspond to stages of Masonic initiation. The pillars of Jachin and Boaz, which in Scripture are simply named columns in the Temple court, are reinterpreted in Masonic-Kabbalistic tradition as the two opposing pillars of the Tree of Life — mercy and severity, active and passive, masculine and feminine.
Albert Pike himself acknowledged the Kabbalistic foundation of Masonic philosophy extensively in Morals and Dogma. The Scottish Rite degrees are saturated with Kabbalistic concepts, Hebrew letter mysticism, and gematria — all of which come not from the Torah but from the rabbinic mystical tradition that developed after the exile.
Freemasonry did not inherit the faith of Moses. It inherited the mystery teachings of Babylon, dressed in Hebrew symbols, and sold as ancient wisdom. The Jewish roots are a costume. The actual roots are Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and pagan.
The Catholic and Jesuit Connection
The relationship between Freemasonry and the Roman Catholic Church is one of the most complex threads in the history of Western religion. On the surface, the two institutions have been enemies for centuries — the Vatican has issued multiple papal bulls condemning Freemasonry, and Catholics are technically forbidden from joining the lodge. But beneath the surface, the connections run deep.
The Jesuit Order
The Society of Jesus — the Jesuits — was founded in 1534 and built along military lines. Like the lodge, the Jesuit order runs on ranked degrees of initiation, sworn oaths of secrecy, and absolute obedience to superiors. Two institutions. Same architecture. Whether the Jesuits shaped the higher degrees of Freemasonry or the reverse, what matters is the pattern: hidden knowledge dispensed in stages, accessible only to the initiated, the true purpose kept from everyone below the top rung.
Two Sides of the Same System
The Catholic Church and Freemasonry both claim to be gatekeepers of spiritual truth. The Church interposes a priesthood between Yahuah and His people, dispensing salvation through sacraments controlled by ordained clergy. Freemasonry interposes a degree system between the initiate and “Light,” dispensing knowledge through rituals controlled by lodge masters. Both systems require mediation. Both systems require submission to human authority. Both draw water from the same well — the mystery religions of the ancient world. Both run the same play the priesthood has run since Babel: priest, ritual, hidden knowledge, and ascending levels of initiation.
The obelisk in St. Peter’s Square — an Egyptian sun monument — stands at the center of the Catholic world. The blazing sun on the altar of every Masonic lodge represents the same thing. Whether you enter through the church door or the lodge door, you arrive at the same symbol: the sun.
The Nation They Built
The United States of America was not founded by Christians building a city on a hill. It was founded by Freemasons building a republic on a grid — and they told you so on every dollar bill.
The Founding Fathers
George Washington was a Master Mason, initiated into the lodge at Fredericksburg in 1752. He was inaugurated as the first President wearing his Masonic apron, and he laid the cornerstone of the Capitol building in a full Masonic ceremony. Benjamin Franklin was one of the most prominent Freemasons in American history, serving as Grand Master of Pennsylvania and as a member of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters in Paris. John Hancock, Paul Revere, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford were all Freemasons.
This is not a fringe claim. The Grand Lodges of the United States publicly celebrate these affiliations. The George Washington Masonic National Memorial stands in Alexandria, Virginia — a massive temple to the first president and his Masonic identity.
The Great Seal and the Dollar Bill
The reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States — printed on every one-dollar bill — features two symbols that are unmistakably Masonic and occult:
The All-Seeing Eye above the Unfinished Pyramid — The eye inside a triangle radiating light is the oldest symbol of illumination in the Western occult tradition. It appears in Egyptian art as the Eye of Horus. It appears in every Masonic lodge. On the dollar bill, it hovers above a pyramid with 13 steps — an unfinished structure awaiting its capstone.
Novus Ordo Seclorum — “New Order of the Ages.” This is not a Christian motto. It is a declaration of a new era — a new world order built on principles drawn from the Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and the Hermetic tradition. The phrase is taken from Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, which describes the return of a golden age under the reign of Apollo — the sun god.
Annuit Coeptis — “He approves of what has been started.” The “He” is not identified. The eye watches. The work continues. The pyramid rises.
Washington, D.C.
The capital city of the United States was designed with geometric precision. Researchers have documented that the street layout of Washington, D.C. contains Masonic and occult geometric patterns, including pentagrams, squares, and compass-like arrangements oriented to astronomical alignments. The Washington Monument — the tallest structure in the capital — is an Egyptian obelisk, the ancient symbol of the sun god Ra. It stands 555 feet tall (6,660 inches).
The nation’s capital is an open-air Masonic temple. Its monuments are obelisks and domes — the symbols of the sun and the heavens. Its founding documents carry Masonic mottoes. Its currency carries Masonic symbols. And its founding fathers wore the apron of the lodge.
What Scripture Says About Secret Societies
John 18:20
Yahushua answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.
Yahushua said nothing in secret. His teaching was open, public, and accessible to everyone. There were no degrees of initiation. There was no hidden knowledge reserved for the elite. There was no secret handshake, no private ritual, no oath of silence. Everything He taught, He taught openly.
Any system that operates through hidden knowledge, sworn secrecy, and graded levels of access is, by definition, the opposite of how Yahushua operated. The light of Yahuah is not dispensed in degrees. It is not earned through ritual. It is not withheld from the unworthy. It is freely given to everyone who seeks it.
Matthew 10:26
Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
Ephesians 5:11–12
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
Freemasonry claims to bring men from darkness to light. Scripture says to have no fellowship with the works of darkness. Freemasonry operates in secret. Yahushua said nothing in secret. Freemasonry claims ancient Hebrew roots. Its actual roots are Babylonian, Kabbalistic, and pagan. Freemasonry venerates the sun as the supreme symbol. Scripture commands the destruction of everything connected to sun worship.
The lodge is not a brotherhood of light. It is another room in the same temple that has been operating since Babel — the temple of the Sacred Art, where the serpent’s promise of hidden knowledge is dispensed in carefully measured doses, one degree at a time.
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