Our Gods Wear Spandex (7 page)

The origins of Freemasonry are murky. Masons claim their order evolved from the stonemason guilds of the Middle Ages. These master craftsmen often traveled far from home to build cathedrals, taking the closely guarded secrets of their trade with them. These trade secrets developed into an elaborate system of rituals and secret codes protected by the Masons as they traveled a network of lodges frequented by other craftsmen. Eventually, the guild itself evolved into “Speculative Masonry,” which focused on the symbolic and spiritual aspects of the craft. This new brotherhood attracted aristocrats and intellectuals from across Europe and ultimately became a force to be reckoned with.

Masonry was especially powerful in Britain and its colonies. The first established Masonic body was the Grand Lodge of England, which announced itself to the world in 1717. Masonic ritual traveled with colonists to the New World—several of America's Founding Fathers, including George Washington, were Masons. The famous Boston Tea Party was the work of a Masonic lodge, and the Great Seal of the United States is replete with Masonic imagery and numerology.
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Freemasonry helped break the power of the Vatican by supporting the political fervor that sparked both the French and American Revolutions. It became so powerful in America, in fact, that in the early 1800s, an Anti-Mason political party was formed.

The backlash against Masonic power in the early 1800s sent the movement underground, only to emerge even more powerful in the late Victorian Age. In America, Masons became prominent in business, sports, and politics, and exerted
a strong influence on popular culture. Media moguls like Louis B. Mayer (MGM), Darryl Zanuck (20th Century Fox), and Jack Warner (Warner Bros.) were all high-level Masons.
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Many believe that Freemasonry is nothing but a modern incarnation of the old mystery religions, particularly the Mithraic and Osirian/Dionysian cults. Masonic symbols like the pyramid and the All-Seeing Eye, both of which are identified with Horus, come from ancient sources. Masons, in fact, refer to themselves as the “Widow's Sons,” a reference to Horus, son of the widow Isis.
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The iconic Masonic emblem of the square and compass represents the masculine and feminine aspects of creation. Although the Masonic community is generally thought to be in decline today, it's hard to overestimate its influence on American culture. Masonic ideals are part and parcel of our national creed, as well as our national mythology. When Superman stands for “truth, justice, and the American way,” he is also standing for the Masonic way. It's almost impossible to separate the two in a definitive way.

The 19th century also saw the rise of major alternative religious movements, particularly in America, and more particularly in New England. Three of the most important of these movements—Christian Science, Transcendentalism, and Mormonism—had important links to Freemasonry.

Christian Science is based on the doctrines presented by Mary Baker Eddy in 1875 in
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
. Eddy (1821–1919) taught the virtues of healing through faith, preaching that illness is an illusion. For many, this led to the disavowal of medical science—admittedly a science in name only at the time. Christian Science was essentially a mystical faith that resonated with the rituals of
the Masons, who paid tribute to Eddy by erecting an 11-foot pyramid at her New Hampshire birthsite, which the Church's embarrassed directors had destroyed.
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Christian Science attracted the literary and artistic elite, through whose support an enormous Mother Church was erected in Boston. The faithful also founded the influential newspaper
The Christian Science Monitor
, as well as several other long-running periodicals. Like Scientology in more recent times, Christian Science was popular in Hollywood, attracting a wide range of adherents active in the media.
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The Church of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church, traces its origins to hidden scriptures known as
The Golden Plates
, allegedly revealed by an angel named Moroni to Joseph Smith.
The Golden Plates
claim that Jewish tribes emigrated to America following the fall of Jerusalem and that Jesus reappeared to them. Mormonism is considered a pseudo-Christian cult by most Christian denominations. It preaches a cosmology more akin to Gnosticism than mainstream Christianity, teaching that God was once a mortal and that men have the potential to become gods themselves.

The Mormons were extremely unpopular in their early days and traveled west to flee persecution for, among other things, encouraging polygamy. The Mormons eventually settled on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Many believe that Mormon rituals are based in Freemasonry. Founder Joseph Smith was initiated a Master Mason in 1842, and some claim that he was schooled in the rites of ceremonial magic and alchemy by Dr. Lumna Walter.
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Indeed, Egyptian symbols are common in Salt Lake City, including a statue of the Great Sphinx bearing Joseph Smith's likeness.
The Golden Plates
were recently adapted into comic form by Mormon comic artist Mike Allred
(Madman, X-Factor)
.

Transcendentalism is a blend of Christianity and Eastern thought that had a strong influence on Theosophy. The movement began in September 1836, when poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson founded the Transcendental Club. In January 1842, the Club announced itself to the world with a lecture read by Emerson at the Masonic Temple in Boston. Emerson read texts like
The Bhagavad Gita
and Buddhist scripture, as well as the writings of Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. From these readings, Emerson developed a philosophy that taught the unity of creation and the virtues of mysticism over rationality and logic. Emerson's circle included novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. There was even a Transcendental commune, but it was short-lived (as communes filled with intellectuals usually are).

The rise of secret societies in the 18th century and the proliferation of alternative religious movements in the 19th prepared the way for an explosion of new religious thinking at the turn of the 20th century. In many ways, it all starts with the English politician, novelist, and occultist Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873).

A hereditary peer and a reformist member of Parliament, Bulwer was an ally of legendary Prime Minister Benjamin D'Israeli. He represented Hertfordshire, former British headquarters of the Knights Templar. A lifelong student of the
occult, Bulwer was also an active Freemason and a high-ranking member of the Rosicrucian Order. He also formed a group with legendary French occultist Éliphas Lévi for the advanced study of magic. Bulwer channeled his interests into the writing of occult fiction, claiming that he created his novels to battle against what he called the “absorbing tyranny of every-day life.”

One of his most popular and influential novels,
Zanoni
, concerned a high-ranking Rosicrucian who takes a young woman's place at the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in France. The novel deals extensively with Rosicrucian philosophy, to the point that it could act as a primer for the Brotherhood. Bulwer would write that “the supernatural is only something in the laws of nature of which we have been hereto ignorant.”
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The Stephen King of his era, Bulwer wrote best-sellers like
Paul Clifford
and
The Last Days of Pompeii
that were popular worldwide.
The Last Days of Pompeii
delved into ancient magic and the cult of Isis, as well as the mystical ferment of first-century Rome. Two mystic characters—a Witch of Vesuvius and an Egyptian magician who claims descent from the line of Rameses—are prominent. Bulwer's 1857 short story “The Haunted and the Haunters,” anticipates writers like H. P. Lovecraft, exploring metaphysics in the context of Gothic fiction. In addition to these stories, Bulwer wrote a number of historical novels like
Harald, Last King of the Saxons
. None of these, however, had nearly the influence of his 1871 work,
Vril: The Power of the Coming Race
.

For all its influence,
Vril
is hardly a page-turner. The book has no plot to speak of and consists mainly of an unnamed American narrator's observations of the history and customs of the
Vril-ya
(meaning “the civilized nations”). The Vril-ya are a race of superhumans driven underground in the distant past, where they form a new society lit by an interior Sun. The Vril-ya are far more advanced than surface dwellers, having discovered an all-powerful liquid called
vril
that seems to be roughly analogous to some form of atomic energy and is extracted from the interior Sun.

The Vril-ya are ruled by a benevolent dictator. They disdain conflict and debate, and equate philosophy with “wrangling.” Their social creed is: “No happiness without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity.” Women are
larger (some seven feet high) and more formidable than the men, yet make “the most amiable, conciliatory, and submissive wives.” Robots seem to do most of the work. The Vril-ya are vegetarians; they disdain “carnivores”; they are convinced of their superiority over all other people. Bulwer describes them as beautiful and exotic, having “blue eyes, and hair of a deep golden auburn” and “complexions warmer or richer in tone than persons in the north of Europe.” Like New Agers, they:

…dwell in an atmosphere of music and fragrance. Every room has its mechanical contrivances for melodious sounds, usually tuned down to soft-murmured notes, which seem like sweet whispers from invisible spirits…they have a notion that to breathe an air filled with continuous melody and perfume has necessarily an effect at once soothing and elevating upon the formation of character and the habits of thought
.
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The nameless narrator laments the Vril-ya's state of apparent perfection, however, claiming it has a stultifying effect on the arts and the creative spirit: “Without its ancient food of strong passions, vast crimes, heroic excellences, poetry therefore is, if not actually starved to death, reduced to a very meagre diet.” He laments their lack of passion and notes that, without crisis and strife, there is no opportunity for heroism: “Where there are no wars there can be no Hannibal, no Washington, no Jackson, no Sheridan.”
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Beneath their placid exterior, however, the Vril-ya nurse a dark agenda. They describe themselves as exiles, “driven…to perfect [their] condition and…destined to return to the upper world, and supplant all the inferior races now existing therein.” Nor will the “supplanting” be a peaceful process. The Vril-ya openly predict that they will exterminate the inhabitants of the upper world upon their return. The Vril-ya's calm assumption of eventual return and conquest leads the narrator to hope that “ages may yet elapse before they emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.”
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To the Victorians, the combination of Utopianism, genetic superiority, and irresistible technological force made for an intoxicating brew. The social displacement caused by the Industrial Revolution and demographic anxieties provoked by imperialism made Bulwer's vision of an all-powerful, highly evolved race a comforting vision of the future. This new type of Utopianism influenced untold legions of science-fiction writers and inspired the “World of Tomorrow” propaganda that helped many people weather the Great Depression.