SECRET SOCIETIES.

"Secret Societies and Subversive Movements," by Nesta H. Webster ;  published by the Boswell Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd., London.

In these days when much is again heard of secret societies and organised movement against Civilisation and Christianity, it is necessary that one should strive to come to the facts. Mrs. Webster's books on "The French Revolution" and "The Plot Against Civilisation" proved her to be a competent historian and an indefatigable searcher for the truth. It is but fair to say that when we are considering secret societies a distinction must be made. There are beneficent secret societies; there are such societies as Disraeli referred to in the House of Commons so long ago as 1856, organised for political objects; there are societies, if we believe some historians, constantly aiming at world revolution, with no object but the overthrow of civilisation. Mrs. Webster is one of those who hold that there is a constant secret attack on civilisation and all it stands for. She therefore holds that the French Revolution did not arise merely out of conditions or ideas peculiar to the eighteenth century, nor the Bolshevist revolution out of political and social conditions in Russia, or the teachings of Karl Marx. If we are to agree with this view we must be content to be taken very far back in the history of the world, and then we may be convinced that "recent explosions have been produced by forces which, making use of popular suffering and discontent, had long been gathering strength for an onslaught not only on Christianity, but on all social and moral order." Mrs. Webster divides her survey into two parts dealing respectively with the past and the present. In the past more particularly she considers "the ancient secret tradition," the revolt against Islam, the Templars, occultism, the origins of Freemasonry, the Grand Lodge Era, German Templarism and French Illuminism, the Jewish Cabalists, and the Bavarian Illuminati. To our modern ears the very sound of some of these titles is too far distant to cause disturbance. Mrs. Webster follows a double line of investigation— the course of associations enveloping themselves in secrecy for the pursuit of esoteric knowledge and the course of those using mystery and secrecy for an ulterior and usually a political purpose. Secret societies, it is alleged, came from the east; from the earliest ages there appeared to be a fascination in mysterious associations. Sometimes the aim was good and continued to be good; at other times the aim was good, but was eventually diverted to evil. Amusement must surely be felt at some of the "abstruse" studies with which early secret societies concerned themselves. We should say that it was sheer waste of intellectual power to discuss how many white hairs a red cow may have and yet remain a red cow. These we feel do not account for the secret societies and their undoubted power. We find that some times the ostensible object covered dark designs, as for instance, secret attacks on early Christianity. As regards Masonry, Mrs. Webster declares that Craft Masonry is largely founded on the Cabala, but she distinguishes between the different Cabalas, one of which, at least, was undoubtedly perverted.
 The study is complete; whether Mrs. Webster is correct in her deductions is a matter for further discussion. It is shown that in the middle ages the Vehmgerichts, said to have been established by Charlemagne, became so formidable that succeeding emperors were unable to control their workings and found themselves forced to become initiates from motives of self-protection. In dealing with the Grand Lodge Era, which, of course, is a point of particular interest to Masons, Mrs. Webster remarks that unfortunately, as too often happens when men form secret confederacies for a wholly honourable purpose, their ranks were penetrated by confederates of another kind. This is the prelude to a recital of the divergencies between Craft Masonry as practised in England, and the movement on the continent, which is elsewhere alluded to as a superstructure. We doubt whether Mrs. Webster's explanation will remove all misapprehensions about English craft Masonry even now entertained in exalted quarters of the continent, but there is evidence here that English Masonry has never been used for such purposes as were the French Illumines — a Cabalistic sect. It is usual to associate the name of "Weishaupt with the first deliberate attempt to found Illuminism, but Mrs. Webster iterates and reiterates her belief that men aiming at the overthrow of the existing social order and of all accepted religion had existed from the earliest times, and that in the Cainites, the Carpocratians, the Manicheans, the Batinis, the Fatimites, and the Karmathites, many of Weishaupt's idea had already been foreshadowed. Even Weishaupt's system of organisation was not his own; it was used in the enlisting of proselytes by the Ismailis.
 Coming to open subversive movements, Mrs. Webster asks why should the Socialists of Great Britain be differentiated from the Bolsheviks of Russia, since in every question of importance they have always lent them their support. "It would not be an exaggeration," writes Mrs. Webster in the concluding chapter, "to say that no subversive movement in the world to-day is either pro-French, pro-British, or 'anti-Semitic.' We must conclude, then, that if one Power controls the rest, it is either the Pan-German power, the Jewish power, or what we can only call Illuminism." And it is evident that Mrs. Webster does fear that, so far as Britain is concerned, only a great national movement can save the people from destruction.

Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), Saturday 11 October 1924, page 11