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Most of these are complete fabrications; the rest are misunderstandings of the institution and its rituals. A number of forgeries and alleged exposes of Masonry were created during the last century. Most of the claims of “Satanism” in Masonry can be traced to one or two of these fraudulent sources. Other such allegations are simply made-up claims about what various Masonic emblems and symbols stand for.

For example, it is sometimes claimed that the letter “G” found in the Master Mason’s jewel, along with the Square and Compasses, is a substitute for a phallic symbol. But there is nothing in Masonry to support such a statement; it is complete fiction. The letter “G” stands for God, Geometry, Gnosis... (it is used by Masons who speak other languages due to the modern origins of Masonry in English-speaking countries); in the Scottish Rite, the Hebrew letter yodh, which is the first letter of the Tetragrammaton, or Ineffable Name, plays the same role.

Another example that came up recently was a discussion of the Blazing Star. This is one of the “ornaments” of a Lodge, introduced in the Entered Apprentice degree. A non-Mason insisted that Freemasons “worship” the Blazing Star - the Blazing Star is somehow to be identified with Lucifer (based on the verse Isaiah 14:12) the Blazing Star is the “false dawn” that can then be identified with a false light (in competition with the true Light of Jesus) and that therefore Masons engage in devil worship.

Here are the facts:

Isaiah 14 is a chapter with a prophecy against the kings of Babylon, specifically Nebuchadnezzar. The quoted verse is rendered, in my Bible, “Day-star, son of the morning, how hast thou fallen?” In this passage, the prophet alleges that the arrogant king of Babylon has thought himself as glorious as a celestial body, but that the destruction of the kingdom of Babylon shall surely bring him back to earth. The word here translated as “day-star” is, in Hebrew, “heyleyl,” and refers to the planet Venus. The ancient Greeks and Romans both used different words for this planet when it appeared in the morning sky from its appearance in the evening sky. The Greeks called it Hesperus in the  evening and Phosphorus in the morning; the Romans called it Venus in the evening and Lucifer in the morning. Hence, the translation of the Hebrew, via Greek, into Latin (i.e, from the Hebrew to the Septuagint to the Vulgate), naturally would introduce the word “Lucifer” as the correct Latin translation of the Hebrew.

The term “Lucifer” as a name for the Devil or Satan, cannot be traced any farther back than the Middle Ages, and was only widely popularized by Milton’s epic poem, “Paradise Lost.” The Minnesota Masonic Manual (as one source on the lectures of Masonry) clearly identifies the Blazing Star as emblematic of the Star of Bethlehem, hardly a “Satanic” reference. It has nothing to do with the planet Venus.

The Blazing Star is mentioned for about 30 seconds in a lecture some 20-30 minutes in length (it depends on jurisdiction) in the first degree of Masonry only, an amount of attention that could scarcely be described as “worship.”

The “false dawn” is not heralded by Venus, but is a phenomenon produced by the Zodiacal Light, a band of dust lying in the plane of the Earth’s orbit, which most prominently appears as a skyglow before sunrise in the fall (the false dawn) and after sunset in the spring, but can only be observed under ideally dark conditions.

In other words, the allegation about Masonry in this case combines many errors: Taking a portion of a single verse of the Bible out of context, misinterpreting its translation, misunderstanding an astronomical term, misidentifying a Masonic emblem with an astronomical object, and mis-characterizing the importance of a symbol in the ritual. Perhaps all of this can be attributed to ignorance, but since the facts are easy to obtain, one is forced to wonder about how such allegations come to be and to persist.

Assertions about “pagan” material in Masonry may stem from the study of material from the ancient world in some of the degrees. But this is not paganism (the worship of idols, natural objects, or polytheistic human-like deities). In fact, many of the early teachings of the Church depended heavily on the works of such “pagan” philosophers as Plato and Aristotle; Christianity has absorbed such pagan elements as the Christmas tree, the name Easter (from a pagan fertility goddess), and the actual date of Christmas (pre-empting the Roman’s pagan winter solstice festival of the Saturnalia). Indeed, the mythos about the fall of Lucifer from heaven to the underworld is of pagan origin, derived from the Graeco-Roman legend of Hephaestus (Vulcan) who fell from Mount Olympus to the nether regions, where his forges were located, and in ancient art is depicted as lame from the fall. There have been many thinkers and learned men in cultures other than that of the West in the Judaeo-Christian era, and it is not “paganism” to study them.