Enlightenment philosophy drew heavily from Hermetic, Neoplatonic, and Renaissance esoteric currents (via figures like Bacon, Newton, Locke). These ideas naturally influenced educated colonials, many of whom were Masons.
Possibly…. America was deliberately founded as an esoteric working by initiates carrying forward ancient mystery school wisdom, intended as the New Atlantis and platform for human spiritual evolution.
Founders' own statements about creating a "new order of the ages" (Novus Ordo Seclorum on the Great Seal)
Prevalence of Hermetic and Neoplatonic philosophy in Enlightenment thought
The Templars preserved a synthesis of
– Solomonic temple lore
– sacred geometry
– Egyptian and Hebraic initiations
– Grail symbolism
When persecuted, they dispersed into:
– Scotland
– Portugal
– parts of Germany
There, they went invisible
The Rosicrucians and later Freemasonry are seen as containers for this current—not identical to the Templars, but descended streams carrying fragments of the same flame.
From the occult perspective, Freemasonry is:
- a symbolic operating system
- a ritual language for shaping societies
- a method for encoding metaphysical principles into stone, law, and city design
When enough men shaped by the same symbolic grammar act together, civilization is changed and evolved…
The Founders
Washington
Franklin
Jefferson
Adams
Steeped in:
- classical virtue ethics • Enlightenment rationality • Masonic symbolism • Roman republican myth • Biblical covenantal thinking
sovereignty of the individual soul • law above kings • authority derived from principle, not blood
- George Washington was initiated into Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 in Virginia (1752)
- Benjamin Franklin was Grand Master of the Nine Sisters Lodge in Paris