Freemasonry & Wicca: The Craftsmanship (3:08)
https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=glBIea57QBQ
(Or w/tracking) https://youtu.be/glBIea57QBQ
A lot of the terminology Wiccans use today comes straight from Freemasonry. Phrases such as “So mote it be” and “Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again” were used in Masonic lodges long before they were uttered in a magick circle. (1) Nabarz, The Square and the Circle: The Influences of Freemasonry on Wicca and Paganism, p.80–81
Even “the Craft” as a synonym for Witchcraft and Wicca comes from the Masons.(2) Nabarz, The Square and the Circle, p.70
In ‘The Dark Side of Freemasonry’ (pp. 165-167) former Wiccan Witch high priest and thirty second degree Freemason, and now evangelical authority on the cults and occult, William J Schnoebelen explains.
“A: Both are built on a foundation system of three degrees, with a few forms of Wicca offering some higher degrees after the third degree has been achieved.
B: Both are secret societies in that both membership rolls are secret, and secrets are kept from the general populace (to a greater or lesser degree) by both religions. Both generally meet in secret, except for rare open and public events.
C: Both have highly ceremonial initiations to pass from one degree to another, including sworn oaths.
D: Both have ceremonial purgings and purifications of their ritual space before commencing any ritual work.
E: The precise similarities between the two groups are that both groups:
-
Cause candidates to strip off all secular clothing;
-
Cause the candidate to be divested of all metal;
-
Hoodwink (blindfold) the candidate and ceremonially tie ropes around him (though the form of the tying varies);
-
Cause the candidate to stand in the Northeast corner of the ‘temple’ in the first degree;
-
Challenge the candidate by piercing their naked chest with a sharp instrument (witches use a sword, Masons, the point of a compass);
-
Challenge the candidate with secret passwords;
-
Lead the candidate blindfolded in a circumambulation (walking round) of the temple; and
-
Require the candidate to swear solemn oaths of secrecy before being given custody of the secrets of the group…
-
Both have a ceremonial unhoodwinking of the candidate, following the oath, before lighted candles that is intended to bring ‘illumination’.
-
Both convey to the new initiate the “working tools” pertinent to that degree, and each of their uses are taught to them.
-
In both, the tools have correspondences both in the ceremonial realm and in similarities to human reproduction.
-
Both, in the higher degrees, take the initiate through a ritual death-and rebirth experience in which the initiate acts the part of a hero (heroine) of the craft.
-
Both cause the candidate to endure (while being blindfolded) being picked up, spun around, carried around, being jolted or struck from person to person. This is supposed to produce an ‘altered state of consciousness’.”
William J Schnoebelen states in ‘Beyond The Light’ (p. 215), “he [the Mason] is spiritually connected to an organization whose rites can effortlessly slide into witchcraft and devil worship and fit beautifully! If Freemasonry is so godly, how can it possibly be interchanged by both witches and satanists so freely?”