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Friday, October 09, 2015

New Book Makes Jack The Ripper A Freemason…Again

Here we go again. 

The tired old accusation that the infamous Jack the Ripper was a Freemason is back. The latest author to try to make this idiotic claim is Bruce Robinson in his new book, They All Love Jack: Busting The Ripper.

Read the interview with him in GQ-UK Magazine. From "How one man revealed Jack the Ripper's identity" by Robert Chalmers:



Robinson's research into the Ripper's atrocities gathered pace once he examined the murder of Catherine Eddowes, the second of two murders (known as the "double event") on the night of 30 September 1888. "He killed and mutilated her, then wrote this message on the wall: 'The Juwes are / The men that / Will not / Be blamed for nothing.' Sir Charles Warren, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is informed of this message by telegraph. He leaps out of bed at 4am and gets into a hansom cab, not in order to preserve the writing on the wall but to wipe it out. And erase it he did, even though fellow officers were urging him to have this evidence photographed. Right there you have the fulcrum on which the so-called mystery of Jack the Ripper lies."
The word "Juwes", Robinson argues, is a reference to Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, assassins central to Masonic legend. (Their full history and mythical significance is explained at some length in They All Love Jack.)
"Once I started researching Commissioner Warren, what emerged was that he was a very senior Freemason. He knew the message about 'Juwes' had to have been written by a Mason. Warren got his stupid arse out of bed that night to fulfil the spirit of the oath sworn by a senior Freemason, ie, 'I will protect any other Mason [from the consequences of their actions], murder and treason not excluded.'"
Robinson re-examined the forensic detail of other known Ripper murders. "Freemasonry  has denied any connection with the Ripper for 130 years," he says. "But these women were all murdered according to Masonic ritual. Throats cut across, abdomens ripped open, guts slung over their shoulders, every piece of metal taken off them and placed nearby. The whole affair is glaringly Masonic. That much I realised within a week."
Of course, the notion that Jack the Ripper was a Freemason is hardly innovative. Dozens of Ripperologists have examined the murders in this context
Robinson's no slouch - he's the author of the award winning screenplay for the 1984 film The Killing Fields. But he uses the same, tired old "evidence" that they all use: namely, the "Juwes" nonsense. This theory was first promulgated in Stephen Knight's 1976 book, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. The tale came to him from an informant named Joseph Sickert, son of a painter named Walter Sickert who supposedly knew all the juicy details firsthand and told them to his son before he died (Sickert had an axe to grind, since his father had been a suspect himself). Never mind that no one besides anti-Masonic conspiracy mongers, including any Mason, has ever referred to the three ruffians in Masonic ritual as "the Juwes". And the names of the ruffians were removed from English ritual in the early 1800s. It is very true that Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police and a Freemason, approved of having the message scrawled on the wall removed, but this was because there were rumors in the city that a Jew was responsible for the Ripper killings. There had, in fact, already been several near-riots and incidents of violence against Jews over the case, and Warren didn't want the graffiti seen out of fear that more would happen. 

As to the so-called Masonic ritual references to the killings themselves and the manner in which the bodies were arranged, many of the details are just plain wrong, or a total fabrication. If you want to read about it in great detail, see WBro. Dennis Stocks' very detailed essay, Freemasonry and the Ripper.

I have no idea if the UGLE's ritual in 1888 said that a Mason would protect a Brother, "murder and treason not excluded." Perhaps someone else knows. But I do know that my own jurisdiction goes out of its way in the ritual to specifically say "murder and treason excluded," and has for some time. Certainly, Robinson has no way of knowing. Masons are required to obey the laws of their nation, and there is absolutely no evidence of Masons concealing their crimes from the authorities for each other, despite many attempts to accuse them of it down through history. There is literally one instance in modern history of Masons accused of murder and covering it up (see the entry for William Morgan on Wikipedia), and the evidence of that so-called crime is shaky at best-it has never been proved, and no body was ever found. That's literally it.

This Ripper stuff is typical British anti-Masonic claptrap, and dragging it up again makes me suspect the rest of Mr. Robinson's theories. The entire Masonic theory originated with Joseph Sickert who introduced Stephen Knight to the story, and fabricated a whole Ripper hoax that spawned several books, magazine articles and documentaries. In the June 18th, 1978 edition of London's Sunday Times he confessed that he made the whole story up, or in his own words, "it was a hoaxa whopping fib." Masons included.

3 comments:

  1. The UGLE (United Grand Lodge of England) does not use a "authorized published Grand Lodge ritual". Lodges under the UGLE are free to use a variety of ritual forms, " provided they are consistent with the general laws and regulations of the Craft". -Book of Constitutions Rule 155-

    One of the most beautiful and popular forms used in England today is called the "Emulation Working". The Emulation Working has a governing body which was formed in 1823 known as the Emulation Lodge of Improvement and still exists today. The purpose of this body (and the two prior to it) was to help standardize certain key elements of ritual Lectures from the two Grand Lodges which United in 1813. Prior to the formation of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, there was a Lodge of Promulgation and a Lodge of Reconciliation.

    All this seems to mean, that from it's earliest beginnings, the United Grand Lodge of England was well aware of the importance and meaning of words used in Lectures of high Moral Value.

    There is nothing in the Emulation Working to back the claim that Masons would hide murder, treason or felonies of any sort done by fellow Masons from the legal authorities.

    Quite the opposite, in fact.😇

    ReplyDelete
  2. All this blog post accomplishes is giving the author free publicity and helping him sell more copies of his book of nonsense. Why even pay any attention to him at all?

    Dave Brown
    Garden City Lodge, Newtonville, MA
    Mount Lebanon Lodge, Boston, MA
    Boston University Lodge, Boston, MA

    ReplyDelete
  3. What? That's like saying you should never give anything a bad review, no matter how deserving.

    Bad reviews may or may not fall under the "any publicity is good publicity" rubric, but in this case there's a pretty clear signal that Masons (and anyone else who might read the review) ought to save their ducats and steer clear of the author's claptrap.

    To me, that's a public service. Thanks, Chris.

    Nathan Brindle, PM, PTPM
    Indianapolis

    ReplyDelete

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