Character Counts—
Freemasonry USA’s National Treasure and
Source of Our Founding Fathers’ Original Intent
by Michael
Glenn Maness (AuthorHouse, 2006, 730p)
Analysis of Freemasonry Illustrated
by Jacob O. Doesburg and Jonathan Blanchard [1]
Red by Blanchard, his analysis – Blue by
Doesburg
Front matter and
Attestations.......... 1-6
Publisher’s Preface............................. 7-8
Contents............................................ 9-17............ 17
Introduction.................................... 18-24
1. History....................................... 25-33
2. Character................................... 37-50..................... 33
3.
Lodge Organization.................. 51-53
4.
Titles and Duties....................... 54-58
5.
Entered Apprentice (EA).......... 59-67............ 17
Analysis of 5.................................... 68-69....................... 2
6.
Fellowcraft (FC)......................... 70-74
7.
Masters Degree......................... 75-88............ 19
Analysis of 2nd & 3rd Degree........ 89-92....................... 4
8.
EA Initiation............................ 93-119
9.
EA Lecture............................. 120-149............ 57
Analysis of EA ............................. 150-158....................... 9
10.
EA Closing.............................. 159-164
11.
FC Initiation........................... 165-208
12.
FC Degree & Lecture............. 210-227............ 69
Analysis of FC.............................. 228-237..................... 10
13.
Masters Initiation................. 238-315
14.
Masters Lecture.................... 316-331
15.
Masters Closing..................... 316-339.......... 102
Analysis Masters Degree............ 340-354..................... 15
16.
Mark Masters........................ 355-365
17.
MM Degree & Initiation....... 366-403
18.
MM Lecture........................... 404-413
19.
MM Closing........................... 414-419............ 65
Analysis MM................................ 420-425....................... 6
20.
Past Master Initiation.......... 426-443
21.
PM Lecture............................ 444-454
22.
Most Excellent Master......... 455-471
23.
ME Lecture............................ 472-476
24.
ME Closing............................. 477-482............ 57
Analysis ME................................. 483-485....................... 3
25.
Royal Arch Degree Open...... 486-502
26.
RA Initiation.......................... 503-569
27.
RA Lecture............................. 570-592.......... 107
Analysis RA.................................. 593-605..................... 13
28.
Masonic Secrets Illustrated. 606-638
Appendix—Corrections.............. 639-640............ 35
Total by Doesburg............................................ 528
Total by Blanchard Analysis........................................ 95 623 + 17 = 640
Blanchard’s analysis was in 11 sections for 95
pages,
only 9 sections for 62 pages that actually analyzed
Doesburg’s 528 pages in 24 chapters.
The
following is an excerpt from
Character Counts—
Freemasonry USA’s National Treasure and
Source of Our Founding Fathers’ Original Intent
by Michael Glenn
Maness (AuthorHouse, 2006, 730p): 273-278.
Lastly, but not
the least, we point you to the grand predecessor of most, Jonathan Blanchard
(1811-1892), the first president of Wheaton College. He is in the academic category because he was
president of two schools, coming from the presidency of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, to the newly and
Wesleyan established Wheaton College in 1854. He is the only Christian college president to
publish a significant anti-Mason book. Though
it can be rightly said that Blanchard is not a true academic, as the only thing
he appears to have written was on secret societies, anti-Mason exposures, and
some anti-slavery work—the latter being truly ironic, as he missed the force
for liberty and equality so pervasive in all of Freemasonry.[2] His anti-Mason Freemasonry Illustrated (1879; 640p.) was substantial, reprinted
13 times, and became the footprint for most—though few reference him today; the main author is Jacob O. Doesburg who illustrates the degrees of Freemasonry,
after which Blanchard provides an analysis
(8 analyses in all) that is mostly hateful derision.[3] In the “Publisher’s Preface” it says,
“Freemasonry is a false religion, a counterfeit of the true, … and it is not
strange that this counterfeit, this masterpiece of Satan, should prove the
“deceivableness of unrighteousness” ( 2 Thess. ii. 10).”[4] Blanchard says some terrible things
throughout, and means by this book to capture all, as he says in his
introduction: “by a description and
exposure of one system of false religion, to describe and expose every one, and
to contribute something toward ‘pulling down the strongholds’ of that dark
spirit who presides over the spurious worships, patronizes the vices, and thus
prolongs the miseries of our race, whose parents he deceived.”[5] Clearly in Blanchard’s mind, by his analyses, Freemasonry is a false
religion, and he gives Satanic overtones throughout his Frankenstein
concoction.
If we analyze
Blanchard’s analyses, a few more ironies pop up. The workhorse in Freemasonry Illustrated is Jacob O. Doesburg who goes into great detail throughout 28
chapters comprising 528 pages, which leaves 11 sections for 95 pages of analysis by Blanchard. Furthermore, if you look closer, you will see
that Doesburg does not analyze any of
his presentations, just gives what he believes is the beliefs and practices of
Freemasons without comment, and he is at least honorable enough to include some
Freemasonry interpretations—which forward the highest ideals and exemplify
character counting throughout. But when
you also notice that Blanchard writes 33 pages of introduction, history, and
pseudo-analysis at the start, goodness, that leaves only 62 pages in 9 other
sections that pretend to analyze Doesburg’s 528 pages in 24 chapters![6] And if you look at Blanchard’s hateful words
and few resources, you will see that he, too, does not use any anti-Mason
sources or Freemason sources in any of his own analyses—he just knows—though
unlike Bill Gordon, in all fairness to Frankenstein, Blanchard uses Milton and
more artistic devices, and does come across as having read some real history,
though he does not footnote anyone.
On Doesburg’s
528 pages, note this: on the front cover, Doesburg said he was the Past Master
of Unity Lodge, No. 191, Holland, Michigan. He tries to illustrate the secret work—as a
Past Master—that most of the experts would have had to memorize in most of the
allegorical enactments. Did he memorize all of this? Many master teachers in Freemasonry have. It takes years to become a master of a lodge,
and usually that man has been a Master Freemason for years. Doesburg does not
saying anything negative, nothing himself, about Freemasonry in those 528
pages. But Doesburg apparently exposed for Blanchard to analyze and deride—they are a team. If
Blanchard is true, then what kind of dunce does Doesburg become? Doesburg was
following Satan for how many years prior to him seeing the light? Who is that
dumb for so long? Worse, was he just so utterly weak as he progressed to Master and then Past
Master? What an utterly weak person,
to progress and lead in such error for so long. If you see the structure of the lodge as he
laid out, then—by his own words—he held many positions in pursuit of the
Master’s chair. How can someone be so
evil for so long? Why did this man go
beyond the Entered Apprentice degree, much less anything else? How long does it take for a man to discover
his error? What Doesburg does is this—he reveals that he was a duped man for
decades perhaps. That is not possible. That is the real exposure. No one can meticulously write 528 pages and be
that stupid through their years of leadership.
You must see—Doesburg
cannot be that stupid or weak. Something
else other than some mid-life crisis
cause Doesburg to turn against something that he enjoyed for years. There is another reason, and that reason has
to do with something other than the failure of Freemasonry’s good honor and
Christian compatibility.
Realize, that
Blanchard calls everything Satanic,
and he avoids the hundreds of pages character counting virtues throughout in
the pages immediately preceding his own analysis. Blanchard does not say a single word about the thousands of words on honor and character
counting—occulting character in his measly 62 pages of analysis of Doesburg’s
528 pages. Blanchard’s failure here is
as extraordinary as his degradations.
Blanchard is a
powerful speaker, colorful, and full pretentious wit. I suspect you could feel the flames of hell when
he preached, and was undoubtedly charismatic. In all of his analyses, in each section, he
demeans and alludes to the worst of the worst, when he is not making
accusations of direct Satanic activity. And
he was a rapid anti-Catholic too, often mingling Freemasonry and
Catholicism and Satanism:
But, one says, “If Masonry is the daughter of Popery, why should they conflict?” Answer:
The fight between Popery and the lodge is a family quarrel. The sorceress of Rome scolds Freemasons, and
excommunicates them, as the she-wolf punishes her
disorderly whelps, yet loves them, and licks their wounds. The Molly Maquires of mankind are
nearly all Romanists, and Romish bishops condemn
them. But whoever saw one of them hung
without a priest at his back, and a certificate of absolution in his hand, bearing
that he died a worthy son of the holy mother church? The solution of this puzzle is, that every
false religion is demon-worship and despotism;
and, though they may clash with each other, they do upon the same
principle at bottom, namely, allegiance to the “god of this world.”[7]
All that, as though nothing exists in the Catholic
church that is good or Christian, but he is supremely confidence in his
devil-finding abilities. Throughout, Blanchard
used the terminology of the day, as he did above, associating Freemasonry as in
the league of the Molly Maguires, a radical vigilante group from Ireland and then coming
to the coal mines of Northeastern Pennsylvania, culminating in the sensational trails of 1876-78
after a Pinkerton detective
infiltrated the group. The story was
made into a movie in 1970 starring Sean Connery.[8] Perhaps
Pinkerton could help Blanchard sort out his devil-detective work. The only difference, also occulted by
Blanchard, is that the Molly Maguires were truly a secret society—no one knew
who they were—and Freemasons have always been a public society with secrets.
Folks like
Blanchard crop up everywhere, occult the good, deny character counting, and
seem to be new authorities on Satanic
activity—amazingly and most of the time, without ever referencing a
predecessor. And few are more colorful
or sweeping their devil-may-con antics than Blanchard.
Unlike any other
anti-Mason work, however, the reader is given the Freemasonry degree work
upfront—the secret work, I am sad to relay—and in a profuse fashion, making up
perhaps two-thirds of the 640-page book.
There is no easy way to outline this, because I do not want to affirm or
deny, but Doesburg also included notary statements at the start
of the truthfulness in his depictions.
Presuming the truth of Doesburg, one gets a full view of the blue lodge secret work of the first three degrees
and the degrees in the York Rite—fairly straight through—each chapter followed
by Blanchard’s harrowing and hateful remarks absolutely dependent upon Freemasonry
being a full-fledged false religion full of Satanic overtones. Let me emphasize
overtones, for Blanchard blasts this
and that as Satanic with hateful venom, but a venom he never actually or
adequately proves. If you follow
Blanchard’s reasoning, anything and everything that is not an evangelical
church could be similarly lambasted and Satanic. If you start
with the settled idea of Freemasonry being a religion, and the readers all
being evangelical Christians, then Blanchard makes some sense—especially if you
never knew a Freemason.
Blanchard is
adamant at the start that character does not
count, for he knows and is apparently an expert himself on Satan’s
activity:
That the Masonic system of this country [USA] is made up of the
outcroppings of Asiatic and African paganism in this
Christian country, will be abundantly proved and made plain to every candid and
thoughtful reader of this book. And,
just so soon as convinced of the truth of this theory and belief, patriots will
look with creeping horror on court-houses where the oaths of demons are
superceding the oath of the Infinite and Blessed God. Christians will shun churches and communion
tables where secret worshipers of Satan preach from the pulpits, and administer,
in symbol, the body and blood of Christ. And all thinking minds, who have
learned, with awe, from the oracles of God, the stupendous majesty of the
mission of the Eternal Son of God, who has added eternity to time, and opened a
pure heaven to the hope of mortals, will hail this volume, along with the
anti-secret literature, as heralding and ushering in the time when “that wicked
one” shall “be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his
mouth, and shall destroy with brightness of his coming.” (2 Thess ii. 8.)[9]
Wow—what colorful rhetoric! No wonder he was listened to. No doubt where Blanchard stands! He knows fully the work of Satan, and this
book is part of Satan’s undressing and undoing, and he is supremely confident
of his own great job of undressing Satan, in his own mind. Character does not count. At every
pseudo-analysis, one sees Blanchard not analyzing but ridiculing and
associating every part of Freemasonry with everything Satanic, Pagan, false,
criminal, perverted, and insane—totally and utterly wicked through and through.
Doesburg gives a
detailed section, and then Blanchard searches like an Indian scout for every
single item that can be twisted, and then with his very strong rhetorical arm,
Blanchard twists and entangles and often pull something inside out, to complete
reverse what was said or intended.
The truly
discriminating reader is granted something even Blanchard blurs. In giving the secret work of the Freemasonry,
there could be much misunderstood, but you have to occult every sentence of
hundreds of pages Doesburg’s illustrations to avoid
how much character counting is the philosophic root and focus. Here is the crux: without Freemasonry being a religion and with character counting, Freemasonry’s support of man’s faith and
patriotism comes through in Doesburg and Blanchard’s own book. That is, if Doesburg’s descriptions are
true—certified by a notary as they are—then one has to occult the character
counting resident in each of Doesburg’s sections, that Blanchard analyzes,
occulting character counting all the way.
You have to take
Blanchard all the way, here, like so many today who do the same thing, only in
a vastly weaker fashion—like David Barton does in a super-vastly weaker
fashion. Doesburg and Blanchard worked
hard over a long period of time to put this together; there is no room for
another interpretation in Blanchard, not after his 95 pages of one-way-to-hell
judgments upon Doesburg’s 528 pages, making Freemasonry a Satanically inspired
covert criminal organization. If
Blanchard is right, Freemasonry is Satan’s handmaid or right hand on earth,
fostering the worst wickedness humanity can conceive. And if that is so, what would the fruit
be? How would that attract anyone? Who would stay? The only people that are duped, according to
Blanchard, are the weak and childlike.
Again, as we
have and will see, just like SBC expert Bill Gordon in the 20th—only with more
flare and fire—Blanchard in the 19th century makes millions of men dupes, the
weakest and most immoral imaginable, as they changed the world for good.
There is no
option here. If we were talking about a
secret organization, we might be tempted to be afraid. If we did know any
Freemasons and if we did not have ten legions of legends of men who were
Freemasons, one could think Blanchard’s words sealed the fate for Satan’s right
arm on earth. But since we do have
millions of Freemasons, ten legions of legends, what then? If character counts, then Blanchard has the
loose screw. Honor and dishonor do not
live in the same life, and dishonor and Satanism is harder to sell to good men.
But across the concourse of centuries, we have legions of legends of men who were
the most courageous the world has ever seen.
The only persons who would swallow this are those innocent of
Freemasonry and who did not know many Freemasons, and who trusted in his
character.
Blanchard not
only occults the good and the character counting symbols and allegories that
his co-autor Doesburg gave throughout his own book, but Blanchard occults the
character of legions too; and simultaneously he must prostitute his own
character to sell his version of Frankenstein to his innocent readers. For anyone on earth in earth’s history who
actually knew George Washington or Teddy Roosevelt or George W. Truett for any
length of time (or any of the ten legions of legends) would be revolted by
Blanchard’s accusations of absolute evil.
Incredible! Unbelievable! If you
knew a Freemason, if you knew Washington, Roosevelt, or Truett (or your
father), then you know the truth—no
sir, not a Satanist them. Blanchard’s
credibility would decrease with every page and throughout for such a person, if
they did not burn the book. For
Blanchard is powerfully clear where he stands, and he is perhaps the best and
most colorful and certainly the only academic anti-Mason whose work went
through 13 publications (though none use it today). The bottom line is the lives of the men. Whether the ten legions of legends were
evangelical Christian is less the issue; the issue is, according to Blanchard,
wicked Satanic criminality and thorough deception into fullfledged
anti-Christian Paganism. Therefore,
Doesburg and Blanchard’s book becomes a great testimony to our major thesis:
character counting is the hammer that drives the wedge of credibility. And Blanchard suffers a mortal wound. Either
Washington, Roosevelt, and Truett were Satan’s slaves, or Blanchard was in
error, duped, or confused by the same Satan he discerns in others.
In the end,
Blanchard did not know as much about Satan as he claimed.
Yet that is not
the end of the story. Blanchard
published in 1879, and thirteen editions followed. Over a 120 years later, anti-Masons are today seemingly just discovering
Frankenstein again, undressing Satan afresh, and are making mighty claims
against ten legions of legends for centuries—just as David Barton does (chapter
4) under the guise of patriotic favor and others do in Christian allegiance—all
without referencing their more articulate predecessors.
In 1884,
Jonathan Blanchard became a candidate for president of the United States for
the American Party, but withdrew at the last minute and nominated Samuel C.
Pomeroy. Blanchard was a firebrand, and
his son Charles became the second president of Wheaton, though neither of them
had a doctorate. Not surprisingly, Charles was an anti-Mason, too.
When Blanchard’s
son, Charles Blanchard (1848-1925), debated Mrs. M. E. DeGeer in 1869, it is
clear that Mrs. DeGeer had a better handle on Freemasonry than the
young Blanchard. Charles Blanchard would graduate from Wheaton in the class of
1870, publish his own book, Modern Secret Societies (1903; 310p.), and
became the 2nd president of Wheaton in 1882.[10]
In contrast with
the two Blanchards, Dave Hunt is a true theologian, and, like all of his
work, his Occult Invasion mentioned above (chapter 2.D.2.)
is a powerful work. Though Hunt tossed
in a few paragraphs against Freemasonry, Hunt is not truly an anti-Mason, and
we gave him room above for being sincerely mistaken, as Morey above may have
seen—in the land where honor lives and character truly counts.
The SBC expert
Bill Gordon would have done better to have read Morey and Blanchard first (and
perhaps he did), for there is a far better case for Freemasonry being
Universalism than Paganism, even by the two source authors
that Gordon uses and that Morey also uses.
I guess we could call this omission or confusion Bill Gordon’s
Franken-Bone 25: the avoidance of
easier-to-validate-Universalism Franken-Bone.
The closer one looks, the dirtier Gordon gets, and we could add
Franken-Bones ad infinitum and ad nauseam if we were to move pass
the comic to the atomic level.
See More
www.PreciousHeart.net/freemasonry
Character Counts—
Freemasonry USA’s National Treasure and
Source of Our Founding Fathers’ Original Intent
by Michael
Glenn Maness (AuthorHouse, 2006, 730p)
Buy the Whole Book
[1] Jonathan
Blanchard (1811-1892; 1st president Wheaton College,
www.wheaton.edu/heritage.html), Freemasonry Illustrated—A Complete
Exposition of the First Seven Masonic Degrees, by Jacob
O. Doesburg ... A Historical Sketch of the Institution and
a Critical Analysis of the Character of Each Degree, by President J. Blanchard
of Wheaton College ... The Accuracy of This Exposition Attested by J. O.
Doesburg ... and Others (Chicago, IL: Ezra A. Cook, 1879; 640p), and Revised Freemasonry Illustrated (18th
ed., 1916; 640p.). The 7th edition was
used, published in 1886.
[2] According to www.Wheaton.edu’s on-line library, the school for which he was its first president.
[3] Jonathan Blanchard (1811-1892; 1st president Wheaton College, www.wheaton.edu/heritage.html), Freemasonry Illustrated—A Complete Exposition of the First Seven Masonic Degrees, by Jacob O. Doesburg ... A Historical Sketch of the Institution and a Critical Analysis of the Character of Each Degree, by President J. Blanchard of Wheaton College ... The Accuracy of This Exposition Attested by J. O. Doesburg ... and Others (Chicago, IL: Ezra A. Cook, 1879; 640p), and Revised Freemasonry Illustrated (18th ed., 1916; 640p.). The author is Jacob O. Doesburg who illustrates the degrees and Blanchard writes the analyses. Blanchard also is credited as the author of Standard Freemasonry Illustrated; Full Ritual and Secret "Work" of the Three Blue Lodge Degrees (Chicago: E. A. Cook, 1947; 354p., long after Blanchard’s death) — Scotch Rite Masonry Illustrated. The Complete Ritual of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Chicago, IL: E. A. Cook, 1944; 2 vols.).
[4] Blanchard, Freemasonry Illustrated, 7th edition, 7. The ellipsis excludes the reference for, apparently, the “false religion” accusations: they say, “see notes 28, 41, 64, 71, 77, 87, 131, 134, 137, 159, 161, 208, 212, and pages 37-38,” but these do not prove the religion status at all, a prerequisite to claiming false religion. Is that all?
[5] Blanchard, Freemasonry Illustrated, 7th edition, 19. This follows a quote from the author of The Modern Eleusinia—or A Philosophical History of Freemasonry, who Blanchards quotes as saying, “‘The analysis of one secret order is the analysis of every one;’ because they are all “fashioned after the same idea’” (19, italics Blanchard’s or Eleusinia’s author, whoever that is [and a US Library of Congress search failed us]). Also, Blanchard notes that Freemasonry “became a religion in 1717, during the general reaction of Europe against the Jesuitism of Loyola” at the time when the first Grand Lodge was formed in London, and so “took leave of itself and became a system of idolatry, it spread like an invisible pestilence before he days of quarantine” (151).
[6] See www.PreciousHeart.net/freemasonry/Blanchard_Analysis.html for a rundown of the chapter pages and a copy of this section.
[7] Blanchard, Freemasonry Illustrated, 7th edition, 342.
[8] The Molly Maguires (Directed by Martin Ritt, produced by Martin Ritt and Walter Berstein, with music by Henry Mancini, and also starring Richard Harris: A Paramount production, 1970).
[9] Blanchard, Freemasonry Illustrated, 7th edition, 23.
[10] Charles Albert Blanchard (1848-1925), Modern Secret Societies (Chicago: National Christian Association, 1903. 310p.). — Washington: Was Washington a Freemason? (Chicago, IL: National Christian Association, 191?. 48p.).