-Caveat Lector-
Excerpted from:
"...There is another book, sacred to this tribe, called the Kabbalah.
Its name literally means "a welcome" -- an initiation -- for the
Kabbalah is the key to understanding the hidden cipher of the Hebrew
Scriptures and Prophecies. The "Secret Chiefs" of this tribe, descended
as they are from magicians, Kabbalists and mystics, are dedicated to the
task of bringing about the fulfillment of these same prophecies. To this
end, they have learned to become masters of intrigue, deception, the
sleight of hand, and the inspiration of secret societies from the
Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians to the Golden Dawn, Argenteum
Astrum and the O.T.O., because from time immemorial the nations of the
world have sought to discover the secret knowledge of the Jews. It is
not mere coincidence that the word "cabal" is derived from the Hebrew
Kabbalah.
It was in 917 C.E. that Aaron ben Samuel, a Babalonian scholar and a
Jew, arrived in Italy. He carried with him the texts and ancient oral
traditions of the Practical Kabbalists, known to have existed at least
as far back as the time of Solomon, who had himself been a sorcerer.
Whereas the Speculative Kabbalists were well-known to be harmless
mystics and holy men, the Practical Kabbalists were given over to the
quest for worldly power, becoming the Grand Masters of illusion, the
arch-deceivers.
"Almost immediately upon his arrival, he imparted his mystical knowledge
to the scholarly Kalonymus family. When they moved to the Rhineland in
917 c.e. they established what is now commonly referred to as German
Kabbalism by some, and Early Hasidism by others. Until the time of
Eleazar of Worms, the mystic doctrine transmitted by Aaron ben Samuel
had been considered the private property of the Kalonymides. It was
Judah he-Hasid ("the Pious Jew", died 1217), a member of the Kalonymides
family, who directed his pupil Eleazar to reveal the oral and written
doctrine to a larger audience."
Charled Ponce Kabbalah: An Introduction and Illumination for the World
Today
In the meantime, a radical change had swept through Europe and the yet
more-civilized Islamic world. At the time of Aaron ben Samuel, the Jews
were in control of virtually all commerce and banking throughout the
Mediterranean, Northern Europe and eastward as far as Pakistan. This was
the Golden Age of the Diaspora, when Jews had become privileged in
virtually every court as doctors, advisors, financiers, navigators,
mapmakers, scribes (lawyers), alchemists and astrologers. Then suddenly,
with the start of the Crusades, the Jews were set upon, cast down and
slaughtered throughout the Christian parts of the world.
The First Crusade, in 1095, was under the military leadership of Godfrey
de Bouillon. After the sack of Jerusalem in 1097, Godfrey, allegedly a
Moravingian and Grand Master of the newly-formed (1070 AD) Prieure de
Sion, co-founded the Knights Templar, an order of warrior-monks drawn
from the ranks of the nobility, for the purpose of protecting pilgrims
to the Holy Land.
Conventional history tends to skirt the issue of why the Crusades. The
"calls for help" from the Byzantine Empire to fight the Turks have been
perhaps overstated. The fortress of Constantinople contained a vast
hoard of wealth dating back to Alexander the Great. The Byzantines could
well-afford to hire on the Franks as mercenaries. The Church needed to
transfer the Frankish Knights' loyalty from the French king to the Pope,
and a Crusade provided the opportunity. While the main Turkish force was
arrayed against Byzantium, the Crusaders struck at the exposed Turkish
flank -- Jerusalem! There only remained the question of how the Knights
would be paid. King Baldwin was appointed Prince of Jerusalem by the
Holy See, the Knights Templar became his de-facto government, and they
immediately set about fortifying their newly-created kingdom with modern
castles built for them by the Masons. Within ten years, the Knights and
an affiliated organization, the Hospitallers, were to amass a vast
fortune in land, castles and merchant fleets, as well as a banking
monopoly that was protected by a special Papal dispensation allowing the
Knights to engage in usury.
This is the key to understanding the Crusades: the rise in importance of
merchant-banking. We must remember that, at the time,
intelligence-gathering was an important function of the traveling
merchant class, later called the merchant adventurers, and that the
eleventh-century bankers and caravan masters formed the nexus of what
was to evolve into our modern intelligence and banking apparatus. The
two functions are inextricable from one another. By either providing or
withholding information, they could influence political affairs. And by
the setting of rates of exchange, the merchant bankers could either
drain a city of its capital, or direct wealth and commerce its way. And
thus it was that the merchant bankers -- who were primarily Jews, and
the upstart Venetians -- were rising to challenge the temporal power of
the Papacy, and usurp its role as king-maker. Thus both the aristocracy
and the Papacy were threatened.
The ensuing call for Holy War was preached across Europe by itinerant
monks -- such as the Benedictines, St. Bernard and the Cistercians --
who could whip the people of the towns they visited into a religious
frenzy. To purge Christendom of evil heresy, and to avenge the "Blood of
Christ", the mob would then be allowed into the Jewish quarter. In the
murder and rampage that ensued, the Crusader Knights would suddenly
appear on the scene as "Lords and Saviors" -- and thus whole armies
could be marshalled "on-the-fly". And the occasion also demonstrated to
the Jews how, during the Knights' absence on Crusade, there would be no
one to protect them from the next mob, which could be summoned at any
time by the Church. And so, while on their way to the Holy Land, Godfrey
and the Knights of the Prieure de Sion had quietly strong-armed their
way into the Jewish merchant-banking establishment, and taken over the
operation. This was Pope Urban II's "Rough Wooing" of the Jews. After
the first blood-letting, the surviving Jews were kept on as
tax-gatherers, banking associates, war financiers, and brokers for
converting loot into wealth. And it does make military sense, before
marching off to fight the Turks, that one first "put the Jews in their
place".
So it is fair to say that a great portion of the Templar wealth had been
stolen from the Jews, or that the Papacy had handed over the Jewish
merchant-banking "franchise" to the Knights Templar in payment for their
services; but the situation goes still deeper than that. From the
captive Jews' perspective, while the Pope had indeed put a sword to
their throats, the Templars helped to bring in of new business, in fact,
a great deal of new business -- and it turned out that St. Bernard the
antisemite was also a very talented salesman. This was the beginning of
a very strange relationship ... for the Knights Templar and the Jews
were becoming merchant-banking partners!
The Prieure de Sion, parent organization to the Knights Templar, had
actually been established before the First Crusade, and very likely to
gather and evaluate Jewish & Islamic esoterica (the location in
Languedoc was ideal to this purpose) -- as a sort of
counter-intelligence operation -- and to report directly to the Pope.
The Jews had simply become too powerful in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire
that had been created by Charlemagne was beginning to break up, and the
Papacy was trying to draw the center of power from Paris to Rome. The
Franks were to be amalgamated into the Holy Roman Empire, and their
power absorbed by the Church. Thus it was intended that the Knights
Templar become an independent body, in order that they be removed from
the French king's authority. At what point the confiscation of the
Jewish merchant-banking establishment occurs is merely a question of
opportunity. It was done when it could be done. The dates traditionally
given for the foundation of the Knights Templar record stages in this
accomplishment.
But something else was happening that, in all likelihood, the Papacy had
not foreseen. As the Templars began to learn the art of merchant-banking
from their Jewish captives, they also began to assimilate the apocryphal
and esoteric knowledge of the Jews. The Templars were becoming
crypto-Jews themselves! In time, they would be seen as the "bad boys" of
Christendom (from the Papal perspective) because of their willingness to
deal with heretics.
There was still more at stake. Not only were the Knights stealing the
Jewish banking enterprise, the Church was attempting to steal the Jewish
mystique. The Crusades were being transformed by Urban II and his
successors into a "Christian" attempt at creating a counterfeit Zion, a
false fulfillment of the Hebrew Prophecies. The amalgamation of the
Franks is a perfect example of this. The Church succeeded with the
Franks, but ultimately failed in her enterprise; the next attempt would
be made by the Freemasons, the successors to the Knights Templar, in a
later age. Neither was this the first attempt at a counterfeit Zion:
Saul of Tarsus had long ago set about doing much the same thing with the
early Christians, when he created the Church in the first place.
The other thing to understand is the difference between the Knights
Templar and the Hospitallers. The Templars were both a military and a
religious order, and they took a vow of chastity. The Hospitallers were
not required to do this. And while the Templars were drawn into dealings
with first Jews, and later Turks, Arabs, Egyptians and Moors. The
Hospitallers remained aloof, thus displaying complete loyalty to their
Pope, content to be his pit-bulls on a leash. The Templars were
too-quickly becoming independent-minded, as we said, more willing to
compromise with heretics. And so, when tending to their own business
matters, the Hospitallers tended to align themselves with the Venetians.
So a rift had appeared within Christendom: on the one hand the
Hospitallers and the Venetians, and on the other the Templars and the
Jews. Urban II had perhaps bitten off more than he could chew. He had
acted out of opportunism if not desperation, and he was never in a
position to seize the entire Jewish Nation. The Crusades had not yet
ventured into Iberia (Spain) or Poland. The Sephardic Jews still
controlled a merchant-banking network that extended from Spain across
Africa to Egypt, and from Poland across the Ottoman Empire to Arabia,
and from Babylon eastwards almost to China. Sooner or later they would
avenge their loss to the Christians. In the meantime, the Knights
Templar had acquired the largest portion: they controlled money and
trade from the Eastern Mediterranean to Italy and across Western Europe
as far as the British Isles. But within this trade-zone, the Venetians
and Hospitallers controlled the sea lanes from Cyprus to Rhodes to
Malta. This dynamic equilibrium was to last for nearly two centuries.
The Templars also had, from time to time, alternative trade routes
(courtesy of their Jewish partners) running through Constantinople, and
through Alexandria to Tunis and Sicily. And so they were not entirely at
the Venetians' mercy. But the Templars' prestige ultimately rested upon
their presence in the Holy Land, or at least Cyprus (necessitating the
goodwill of the Hospitallers), and a working relationship with their
Jewish merchant-bankers. Over time, that working relationship grew to a
sort of fondness (if not necessarily for the Sephardim), at least for
Jews in general. Oh, did they repent the bloodbath of Godfroi -- too
late! It was about this time that the Kabbalist works that had been
brought to the Kalonymides family by Aaron ben Samuel two centuries
earlier began to surface.
The notion that there existed apocryphal books that unlocked the secrets
of the Hebrew Prophecies was irresistible to such as the Templars, and
also to the Masons, the Hospitallers and the Venetians, the Pope, and
all his annointed monarchs of Europe. Of course, the complete Kabbala
was known only to the Kalonymides (and also their Sephardic brethren) at
the time, while the Templars were shown only tantalizing bits and
pieces. Before long, the Jewish servants were becoming the teachers, and
the Templars began to quietly accept Jews into their ranks for the
purpose of the knowledge and power to be gained. And not only they. The
hofjuden were also beginning to rise in various European courts, at the
invitation of aristocratic patrons. These are the beginnings of
"Christian Kabbalism".
By degrees, as the apocryphia released by the Kalonymides were
"discovered" by Papal spies, the Crusades were transformed -- by the
Papacy itself -- into a campaign against heresy, and the Christian
Knights were redirected against brother Christians! The horrors of the
Albegensian Crusade are but the clearest example, the Fourth Crusade
another. Following the military setbacks and blunders that were more
frequently occurring, the Templar Knights were forced to abandon
Jerusalem. Most of them went to southern France, to live among Diaspora
Jews and the surviving Cathars, but this upset the balance of power,
threatening both the French king and Papacy in Rome. The Hospitallers
more fortuitously entrenched themselves on the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes
and Malta to await the outcome.
Philippe the Fair, King of France, had his own solution to the problem.
Rather than wait for the Jews & Templars to play him off against the
Pope, he would seize the Papacy and crush the Templars, behind whom hid
the Jews. By murder and intrigue (and most likely with Venetian
assistance) he eliminated two popes and placed his puppet Clement V on
the Papal Throne. Meanwhile, it appears that Edward I of England
surmised Philippe's intent (with Venetian assistance), and correctly
gauged the wind, because in 1301 he expelled the Jews from England and
commenced his war against Scotland.
The Jews, if not the Templars, understood that Philippe was at the heart
of the affair, and they endeavored to undermine his power by collapsing
his currency, and they succeeded in devaluating this by 65%. That event
set off civil rioting in Paris, and Philippe was forced to seek refuge
in the Paris temple in 1305. That the Templars did not simply throw
Philippe to the dogs is evidence that they were either receiving faulty
intelligence (the Venetians?) or that they didn't believe what the Jews
were telling them. For whatever reason, it appears that the Knights
Templar were increasingly the dupes.
In 1306, Philip the Fair attacked the Jews and expelled them from his
kingdom. This was a direct blow to the Templar infrastructure, because
without their Jewish partners, the Templars would be unable to maintain
their financial empire, especially with the Venetians nipping at their
heels. The Templars were caught in a trap. If they defend the Jews, they
would be sealing their own fate, aligning themselves with heretics and
worse. Up to this point they had refrained from killing fellow
Christians, and the latter Crusades had been primarily Venetian and
Hospitaller adventures. For the Templars now to draw swords against
Christendom would destroy whatever good the Order had accomplished. They
had but little choice save stoically face their doom. What is amazing is
that we never see the two events linked. The Masonic accounts of the
Templar martyrdom generally overlook the preceding Jewish expulsion, as
do Jewish historians overlook the subsequent Templar event. Yet the two
cannot be separated. On Friday, 13th of Ocrober, 1307, Philippe the Fair
suddenly arrested all of the Knights Templar in his realm that he could
lay hands upon, put them to the torture, and extracted confessions of
heresy and worse. They were then handed over to the Inquisition of Pope
Clement V, which upheld the convictions and had the Knights burned at
the stake. Jaques DeMolay, then Grand Master of the Prieure de Sion, was
among the martyrs. To this day, Freemasonry still swears to avenge his
death. The properties confiscated from the Templars were divided by
Philip and the Venetians, with the Hospitallers inheriting a substantial
portion therefrom, but much appears to have slipped quickly through
their fingers. The more successful of the Hospitallers and their
families later became prominent Papal and Swiss bankers. The famed
Knights of Malta also came from their ranks, and many Jesuits. It
appears that Christopher Columbus had been a Knight Hospitaller who was
married, as we shall see, to the daughter of a Grand Master of the
Knights of Christ, one of the Templars' successors.
Some of the surviving Knights Templar had escaped to Argyll in Scotland,
where they received protection from their allies, the Masons; This was
the beginning of the "Accepted" rites of Freemasonry, the admission of
non-stonemasons into the Masonic lodges. Others fled to Portugal and
Spain, and still others to Germany and Poland. Many of these resumed
their ties with Diaspora Jewery, and thus remained in contact with
Kabbalistic teachings, which were now taking root in fertile soil [2].
Shortly after the Templar expulsions, as we mentioned, another order of
"Christian" (Marrano) Kabbalists, the Rosicrucians, began to emerge
among the aristocracy in Central Europe. This is sometimes referred to
as The Order of Strict Observance, which claimed a Templar heritage, and
was a forerunner to the Illuminati. They continued the search for hidden
knowledge, intent on unlocking the secrets of the Kabbalah, parts of
which were still missing from their hands. Interestingly, there was an
active Jewish presence in Poland, Austria, Hungary, Provence, the
Palatine and the Papal States at the same time, reflected in the rise of
the hofjuden, or court-Jews in these same countries.
As the Protestant Reformation began to sweep across northern Europe in
the 16th century, the Sephardic Jews and conversos were allowed back
into the Protestant kingdoms, notably Holland, Denmark, Germany and the
Hague. In France, the Houses of Guise and Lorraine remained outwardly
Roman Catholic, but they had secretly embraced Rosicrucianism and were
conspiring to capture the French throne. The Sephardic bankers quickly
reestablished themselves as the most prominent merchant-financiers in
Northern Europe; and this facilitated the infiltration of Jewish
Kabbalists into the expanding Rosicrucian societies. John Dee, Robert
Fludd and others brought the Rosicrucian teachings to England during the
reign of Elizabeth and, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in
1588, Jewish and Flemish mercers began to appear in more frequent
numbers among the merchant-adventurers of London. By the time James I
ascended to the throne, beginning the reign of the House of Stuart,
Rosicrucians were firmly entrenched within British Freemasonry, and by
1630 a Rosicrucian college had been established in London.
This is where things get interesting. For some reason, the Sephardic
merchant-bankers wanted to unseat the Stuart Dynasty, and they began an
economic attack on the English crown from their base in the Netherlands,
using the same tactics of currency devaluation that had been used
against Philippe the Fair. Try as he may, Charles I was never able to
satisfy the Dutch (Sephardim), even though he, too, patronized the
Rosicrucians. As the currency-war intensified, Oliver Cromwell began his
civil war, supported by the mercers and merchant-adventurers, and
financed by the Dutch Jews. More and more Sephardim began slipping into
England from the Netherlands, and these often intermarried with wealthy
British merchant families. [Lady Diana Spencer (a.k.a. "Princess" Diana)
had such a pedigree, dating back to a Jewish mercer who married into the
English noveau-riche, and then purchased a false pedigree and
coat-of-arms.]
By the time of the Glorious Revolution that put William, the Duke of
Orange, on the throne and led to the establishment of the Bank of
England in 1694, Kabbalism and Rosicrucian teaching had become firmly
entrenched within Scottish, French, and finally British Freemasonic
Lodges. This marked the appearance of the "higher degrees", sometimes
referred to as the Jewish Degrees (cf. John Daniel, Scarlet & the
Beast): the formation of the Bank of England consummated this 4-way
marriage of British Freemasonry with the Sephardic merchant bankers, the
merchant adventurers, and the Rosicrucian Kabbalists. The world money
system (with the exception of the Venetian-Swiss-Papal branch of the
Hospitallers) was once again in the hands of the Jews, and the
Freemasons were now their silent partners. Henceforth, international
Jewry would have it in its power to bring down the entire European
economic system, or any part thereof. Needless to say, this gave both
the Sephardic bankers and the hofjuden direct access to the various
Crowns of Europe, and considerable influence over subsequent policy.
But the memory of Edward I of England, who had expelled the Jews during
the Second Crusade, ran deep. The "Secret Chiefs" understood that
England would never be large or diverse enough to serve as the
staging-ground for Jewish world dominion, as foretold in the Hebrew
Prophecies. Nor, for that matter, could any country in Europe:
"The sun of freedom has risen for the Fatherland; for us it is merely a
bloody northern light ... to the oppressed and downtrodden ... to all
whom "liberty" has brought calamity ... we say: "For us no help has
come. Seek it out in far off America."
Leopold Kompert, Jewish poet in Osterreiches Zentral-Organ fur
Glaubensfreiheit
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