Significant Persons in Freemasonry & Illuminati History; from a Masonic Standpoint...
Who was Francis Bacon?
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, and author.
His Novum Organum and later work,The New Atlantis "exerted a considerable and beneficial influence on the manners of his age"1 Simply put, he proposed that truth is not derived from authority and that knowledge is the fruit of experience. In his utopian allegory The New Atlantis, Bacon wrote of a 'House of Solomon': a college of scientific observation and research.
His association with, or influence on, Freemasonry is questionable. If he was initiated or active in any operative or speculative masonic lodge, no record is known. Christoph Nicolai [Nicholai] wrote in 1782 that Lord Bacon had taken hints from the writings of John Andrea2 , the founder of Rosicrucianism and his English disciple, Fludd3 and that his ideas heavily influenced Elias Ashmole.4
Christoph Nicolai claimed that Ashmole and others used Masons' Hall, London to conceal their secret political efforts to restore the exiled house of Stuart and to build an allegorical 'Solomon's House'.5 The New Atlantis did exert a strong influence on the formation of the Society of Astrologers with Elias Ashmole in 1646 and they did meet at Masons' Hall. Many members of this society also became freemasons. If they had any influence on the ritual or doctrines of Freemasonry, it is not apparent, from what few records remain.
Albert Mackey refers to Nicolai's theory on the Bacon inspired origin of the Grand Lodge of England as "peculiar".
Who was Elias Ashmole ?
Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) was a chemist and antiquarian of the late 1600s with connections at Oxford.
Some sources have reckoned him to be the first person whose name is recorded as having been made a speculative freemason (1646). He was deeply interested in the medicinal uses of plants and was made a member of the Royal Society in 1661, although not active.
Assertions that Ashmole introduced Solomon's legend into the masonic ritual ignore the Sloane Manuscript (No. 3329, British Museum) or the rituals of the 12th century French stonemason corporation, Compagnonage. These clearly show that operative masons were familiar with the legend. Ashmole's reputation with his contemporaries was that of an antiquarian and historian, not a ritualist. And unfortunately he never got around to writing a history of the Craft.
Who was Abbé Barruel?
Augustin Barruel (1741/10/02 - 1820/10/05) published Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme, in four volumes octavo, in London in 1797.
He charged the freemasons with revolutionary principles in politics and infidelity in religion. Equally unsubstantiated were his claims that Freemasonry was derived, by way of the Templars, from the Manicheans.2 Often quoted by modern anti-masonic writers, his claims and accusations were widely denounced and discredited by his contemporaries.
Who was Cagliostro?
Giuseppe Balsamo (1743-95), Italian adventurer and gifted con-man.
His alleged initiation into the irregular Esperance Lodge No. 289 (London) in April 1776 is undocumented. Regardless, he quickly turned his association with Freemasonry to his profit; convincing clients in England and the Continent to invest in his own invention, "Egyptian Freemasonry". He was arrested in Rome for peddling Freemasonry in 1789, and died in prison.
Who was Albert Pike?
General Albert Pike (1809-1891) was a lawyer and editor, and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (1859-1891).
Although held in high regard by many North American freemasons, his writings on the history or symbolism of Freemasonry are not considered authoritative.
Author of Morals and Dogma, he extracted much from earlier authors, such that the book's preface reads: "Perhaps it would have been better and more acceptable, if he had extracted more and written less." The preface also states that, "Every one is entirely free to reject or dissent from whatsoever herein may seem to him to be untrue or unsound."
Albert Pike is popular with anti-masons for three reasons. Firstly, Léo Taxil falsely accused him of claiming that the god of Freemasonry was Lucifer (Note Taxil's public confession); secondly, Susan L. Davis and Walter L. Fleming, without documentation or proof, claimed him as a leader of the Ku Klux Klan; and thirdly, Pike's extensive writings are easily quoted out of context to demonstrate pagan or occult leanings.
Who was John Robison?
John Robison (1739-1805)1 was Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, Secretary of the Royal Society in that city, and author of "Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe carried on in the Secret Meetings of the freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, collected from Good Authorities.
Due to the anti-Jacobin sentiments of the day it was received with some excitement but the Encyclopaedia Britannica says that this book, "betrays a degree of credulity extremely remarkable in a person used to calm reasoning and philosophical demonstration." Robison had been initiated into Freemasonry at Liege.
Who was Léo Taxil?
Born in Marseille, France, March 21, 1854 and schooled by the Jesuits, his real name was Marie-Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès.
He tried the shortcut of financial fraud, and when he was discovered he fled from France to Geneva. There, Gabriel Pagès adopted the name of Léo Taxil. Expeled from Switzerland for fraud, he returned, under amnesty, to France in 1879.
In the strongly anti-church climate existing throughout France, Léo Taxil believed that he would find a ready market for anticlerical publications. He wrote anti-Catholic satires, poking fun at church leaders. In hopes of gathering anti-Church material, Taxil joined the lodge Le Temple de L'Honneur Français in Paris in 1881. His true character quickly surfaced, and he was expelled from the lodge before going beyond the first degree. Over the succeeding years, his anti-Catholic writing brought him very little income but earned him a great deal of criticism and condemnation from the clergy. He needed another target for his literary talents.
Léo Taxil confessed on April 23, 1885 to the sins he had committed in writing and publishing anti-Catholic pamphlets. He then began writing a series condemning the freemasons. Titles include: The Three-point Brothers; The Anti-Christ and the Origin of masonry; The Cult of the Great Architect; Pius IX, Freemason? and The masonic Assassins.
Taxil honed the simple declaration, "Lucifer is God," and attributed it to Albert Pike, supposedly delivered to freemasons on Bastille Day, July 14, 1889. (See Section VI Subsection 2)
He also coined the non-existent title, "Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry", for Pike. Of the hundreds of masonic bodies in the world at that time, Pike was the leader of just one, the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite. A blatant fraud, Taxil's forgery was a huge success.
On April 19,1897, Taxil used his celebrity status to attract a large audience to a meeting in Paris. Journalists came, along with members of the Catholic hierarchy. There Taxil announced that every word written about masonic devil worship was the product of his own fertile imagination. A Paris newspaper published the thirty-three page text of his speech the following week. The incorrigible opportunist moved away from Paris to a stately home in the country, where he enjoyed a comfortable life until his death at the age of fifty-three, in 1907.
An English translation of Taxil's published confession appeared in in Volume 5 for 1996 of the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction's education journal, Heredom, edited by S. Brent Morris.
Who was Adam Weishaupt?
Adam Weishaupt was born February 6, 1748 at Ingoldstadt and educated by the Jesuits.
His appointment as Professor of Natural and Canon Law at the University of Ingoldstadt in 1775, a position previously held by an ecclesiastic, gave great offense to the clergy of the day. "Weishaupt, whose views were cosmopolitan, and who knew and condemned the bigotry and superstitions of the Priests, established an opposing party in the University.... This was the beginning of the Order of Illuminati or the Enlightened...."1 Weishaupt was not then a freemason; he was initiated into Lodge Theodore of Good Council (Theodor zum guten Rath), at Munich in 1777.
Source:
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/anti-masonry03.html
I literally grew up in and around the Rose of Sharon Lodge in Flint, MI. My mother and grandmother were Eastern Stars, I was a Junior Star as a kid... I remember having my 11th birthday at the Masonic Temple.. The thing is.. no matter how much information you read, most of it will be watered down because it is, after all, a secret society. 
