Lodges, 'ndrine and conspiracies: John Dickie's version
Flat caps and aprons, secret plots and false historians that have entered the collective imagination and are difficult to eradicate. The relationship between two dark worlds in the story of the author of the "World History of Freemasonry"

Mysteries, but also suspicions: these are words that, when speaking of Freemasonry, almost always end up in the same sentence. But is it really so? He shields himself. He does not consider himself at all a "handyman" of Freemasonry. But his is a monumental work: The Freemasons - World History of Freemasonry , published by Laterza. John Dickie, a professor at University College London , is an internationally renowned expert on many issues of Italian history. He has devoted himself a lot to the dynamics of a mafia and 'Ndrangheta nature. He did it with texts of scientific rank. But also with television works, such as some successful documentaries broadcast by the History Channel .

With his work, John Dickie puts at the center of reasoning the entity that most of all in the world has attracted the most convoluted theories: Freemasonry and Freemasons . Members of a fraternity dedicated to philanthropy and ethics or a secret society complicit in the worst crimes? From the Revolutions to the massacres and the dark plots of republican history: what is true about the Freemasons and what, instead, belongs to the conspiracy myth? The English teacher talks about it in an exclusive interview with I Calabresi .

In his book "Freemasons - World History of Freemasonry" he traces the various eras lived by the Brotherhood. What is the genesis of Freemasonry? What values ??inspired you at the moment of your birth?
« Freemasons love to refer to the arts of trades of the English Middle Ages, and in particular to the art of stone workers. According to the Freemasons, it was these roots of Freemasonry as an organization that at the same time shaped their fundamental values ??(i.e. brotherhood, humility, solidarity and charity, the claim to stand outside the political struggle, religious, political, social and ethnic tolerance. ...) and the symbolism that is at the center of the life of the Lodges. So much so that the most important Masonic symbols ( apron, square, compass, etc. ) are tools which, for Freemasonry, have now become metaphors of moral quality .

https://icalabresi.it/interviste/massoneria-ndrangheta-complotti-la-versione-di-john-dickie/

the book is great!

John Dickie
The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World

Insiders call it the Craft. Discover the fascinating true story of one of the most influential and misunderstood secret brotherhoods in modern society.
Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry.
Yet the Masons were as feared as they were influential. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Freemasonry has always been a den of devil-worshippers. For Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, the Lodges spread the diseases of pacifism, socialism and Jewish influence, so had to be crushed.
Freemasonry's story yokes together Winston Churchill and Walt Disney; Wolfgang Mozart and Shaquille O'Neal; Benjamin Franklin and Buzz Aldrin; Rudyard Kipling and 'Buffalo Bill' Cody; Duke Ellington and the Duke of Wellington.
John Dickie's The Craft is an enthralling exploration of a the world's most famous and misunderstood secret brotherhood, a movement that not only helped to forge modern society, but has substantial contemporary influence, with 400,000 members in Britain, over a million in the USA, and around six million across the world.

The Craft is a shadow history of modernity. Though more sober than most lodge meetings, it is, like its subject, ingenious and frequently bizarre... The Craft is well-crafted and sensible, making good use of English archives which have only recently been opened.
-- Spectator

The Craft is a superb book that often reads like an adventure novel. It's informative, fascinating and often very funny.-- The Times (UK)

[John Dickie] takes on this sensational subject with a wry turn of phrase and the cool judgment of a fine historian... I enjoyed this book enormously. Dickie's gaze is both wide and penetrating. He makes a persuasive case for masonry's historic importance.-- Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

A fascinating tale...Mr Dickie has turned legend into history.
-- The Economist

Convincingly researched and thoroughly entertaining.
-- The Wall Street Journal

John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College, London. His book, Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia, is an international bestseller, with over 20 translations, and won the CWA Dagger Award for non-fiction. Since then he has published Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and their Food (2007) -- now a six-part TV series for History Channel Italia and other networks worldwide. In 2005 the President of the Italian Republic appointed him a Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana. He lives in London

The grand master of the Grande Oriente d’Italia (GOI) lodge, Giuliano di Bernardo, claimed in trials in 2014 and 2019 that linked the ’Ndrangheta with terrorism that he had a discussion with the Duke of Kent, the grand master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), in the early 1990s over infiltration of the Italian lodges in the south of the country by criminal clans.

“It was the Duke of Kent who suggested that I leave the GOI and create a new order,” he claimed. “I would like to point out that the Calabrian context was very concerning because Freemasonry there was much more extensive and powerful than in Sicily.”

I just started with the book if you like Dickie's mafia books you will like this for sure.

'Ndranghetisti and Freemasons, the oath on Garibaldi, Mazzini and La Marmora

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSION OF INQUIRY XV LEGISLATURE
April 15, 2022 • 19:00
The “Santa”, the 'Ndrangheta structure created in the mid-70s of the last century. The young and ambitious members of the clans could be admitted to it, eager to break the chains of the old bonds of the society of mischief and to compete with the outside world, which offered infinite possibilities of insertion, enrichment, gratification.

The Mafia Blog continues on Domani, from an idea by Attilio Bolzoni. You can follow it on this page . Each month a macro-theme, studied in depth with new content a day in collaboration with the Cosa tua association. This series focuses on the report of the Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission of the 15th legislature with president Francesco Forgione who for the first time has dedicated an investigation entirely to the Ndrangheta, one of the most feared mafias in the world, to understand its birth, development and structure. .

The 70s represent a real watershed that will mark the course and history of the 'Ndrangheta, laying the foundations of its evolution up to the economic and military power that today distinguishes its role on the territories and in the international criminal scenario.

In those years the much analyzed and investigated relationship with Freemasonry, historically rooted in Calabrian society, was also consolidated.

The magistrates of the DDA of Reggio Calabria write in this regard: "This is the entry of the leaders of the 'Ndrangheta into Freemasonry, which can only take place after a radical change in the' culture 'and politics' of the' Ndrangheta, a change that passes from an attitude of opposition, or at least of total detachment, with respect to civil society, to an attitude of integration, in search of a new legitimation, functional to the hegemonic designs not limited within criminal organizations, but extended to politics, to the economy, to institutions.

Entry into existing Masonic lodges or into those set up for the purpose had therefore to constitute the intermediary for that connection with those social classes that traditionally adhered to Freemasonry, that is to say professionals (doctors, lawyers, notaries), entrepreneurs, politicians, representatives of institutions, including magistrates and law enforcement officials. Through this connection, the 'Ndrangheta was able to find not only new opportunities for its own economic investments, but unexpected political outlets and above all that coverage, carried out in various ways and at various levels (misdirections, gaps in investigation, attacks of all kinds against unwilling magistrates , process adjustments, etc.), which has resulted in the substantial impunity that characterized this criminal organization for many years,

Naturally, the inclusion in Freemasonry, which although polluted, still remained a very reserved and exclusive organization, had to be limited to top members of the 'Ndrangheta, and to do this an elite structure had to be created, a new leadership, extraneous. to the traditional hierarchies of "locals", able to move in an unscrupulous way, without the cultural ties of the old honored society.

New rules replaced the traditional ones, which remained in force only for the lower grades and for the naïve, but certainly did not bind personalities like Antonio Nirta or Giorgio De Stefano, who moved with quiet ease among state apparatuses, secret services, subversive groups .

Even the activity of confidant, once a symbol of infamy, was now tolerated and practiced, if it served to establish useful relationships with state representatives or if it served to sidetrack investigative activity towards lesser objectives. And further on: "Rationalizing needs, therefore, which in some way anticipated and prepared those new structures of the 'Ndrangheta that formed the subject of this investigation, but which also responded to the need for' secretation 'of the highest levels of mafia power, in order to remove them from the curiosity of the investigative apparatuses and from the confidences of the lower levels of the organization ».

A LONG RED THREAD
A long red thread therefore unites the 'Ndrangheta and Freemasonry, even if, according to the peaceful conclusions reached by judicial and historical investigations, the mutual interpenetration of the two secret societies was consolidated starting from the second half of the 70s, in singular and not certainly casual consonance with what was happening inside the Cosa Nostra, as the collaborator of justice Leonardo Messina reported before the parliamentary anti-mafia commission: «Many of the men of honor, that is, those who manage to become leaders, belong to the Freemasons. This must not escape the Commission, because it is in Freemasonry that one can have total contacts with entrepreneurs, with institutions, with the men who administer power other than the punitive power that Cosa Nostra has ”.

The issue of how to make the judicial and penal level effective when a hidden dimension of power and its duplicity emerges, therefore, remains open. The conclusions reported so far are reflected in some of the "internal" documents of the 'Ndrangheta.

They refer to the formulas of initiation to the "Saint", the 'ndrangheta structure created in the mid-70s of the last century. The young and ambitious members of the clans could be admitted to it, eager to break the chains of the old bonds of the society of mischief and to compete with the outside world, which offered infinite possibilities of insertion, enrichment, gratification.

There are two elements that appear decisive. The first is the commitment made by the Santists to "renounce the society of sgarro". So the old rules, still valid for all the "common" mafia, no longer apply to the new elite of the 'Ndrangheta.

Santists can get in touch with politicians, administrators, entrepreneurs, notaries, even magistrates and members of the police, if this can be useful for the adjustment of processes, for the diversion of investigations, to establish underground relationships of confidence and of mutual exchange of favors.

Infamy no longer represents an insurmountable barrier, it can be circumvented and overcome in view of the advantages that the network of contacts no longer precluded can ensure. The second important element is constituted by the "triad" of the reference characters chosen for the organization of the "Saint".

No longer the Archangels of the sgarro society - Osso, Mastrosso and Carcagnosso, who came from Spain to Italy after 29 years living in the caves of Favignana - but historical characters, well known in the Italian cultural and political tradition: Garibaldi, Lamarmora, Mazzini. The first two, generals of the Italian army, once, as bearers of uniform in the service of the state, would have been considered "infamous" by definition, par excellence.

How then should such a solemn and explicit reference to such characters be explained? What is the message that you want to send to the people of the 'Ndrangheta through this indication? The answer is clear if we observe how Garibaldi, Lamarmora, Mazzini were all three belonging to Masonic lodges, moreover in top positions (Garibaldi was Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy from 24 May to 8 October 1864) .

ENTRY INTO CIVIL SOCIETY
In short, the 'Ndrangheta transforms itself from a separate body into a component of civil society, into a powerful economic, entrepreneurial, political and electoral lobby. Since then it has become the essential interlocutor, the stone guest, of every business, investment, public works program launched both at a regional and central level, but also of every electoral, administrative and political consultation.

To achieve this result, however, the Santists could not come into "direct" contact with the exponents of the institutions and economic power, at least at the time. Today, probably, all this is possible without mediation, but in that historical phase it was necessary to go through clearing houses, which allowed those contacts the necessary amount of confidentiality, reliability, security. It was the Masonic lodges that offered such a possibility. Certainly not all. Some of the existing ones gave their availability, others were created for the occasion, but certainly the Masonic-Mafia system constituted the formidable tool for integrating the mafias into the dominant power system and capturing the business bourgeoisie.

From then on, the 'Ndrangheta phenomenon appears more and more with the characteristics of a structural component of southern society, and not only, as an "institution among the institutions", as a direct and main actor in development and investment policies, implemented in those areas by the community and national institutions.

For this reason it is likely that the role of Freemasonry, ascertained and necessary in other phases, is largely overcome, at least in the forms known so far.

However, it is necessary to abandon some categories of reading strongly rooted in the culture of the anti-mafia, categories that today appear to be outdated and even an obstacle to a reading suitable for providing analysis tools and above all for contrast capable of having any possible effectiveness. The first category is that of the emergency.

If the 'Ndrangheta has lived and operated since the unification of Italy and if, with the passing of more than a century and a half, it has kept its physiognomy and presence intact, increasing its economic strength and the power of political conditioning, then of emergency in the there is very little of his presence.

Rather, it is a dynamic phenomenon, functional to the current economic-social order and therefore cannot be contrasted only with the usual repressive interventions of a judicial nature. The definition of the mafia as an "antistate", then, is one of those that appear suggestive and captivating but linked to the image of a crime similar to the terrorist phenomenon, that is, intending to demolish the rule of law to replace it.

Faced with a historical phenomenon of this magnitude, not only has there never been a serious, lasting, coherent, political will to carry out a decisive and unshakable counteraction but, on the contrary, there has always been a line ambiguous and contradictory.

A real system of collusion and social and economic mediation has been added to the institutional weaknesses and cultural delays, to the point of determining a level of organicity of mafia interests to the dynamics of society, determining the relative degradation of politics and institutions. The border between the state and the interests of the 'Ndrangheta has thus become increasingly blurred in entire areas of Calabria.

With this strength the 'Ndrangheta has always tried, when it had the opportunity, to cross the area of ??its own settlement.

Its being "local" - not surprisingly the self-definition of its central organized structure - has never been considered a cage or a limitation to its mafia action, it has instead represented a launching pad towards other geographical, economic and social territories - in which to establish relationships in which to develop new criminal activities.

https://www.editorialedomani.it/fat...mento-garibaldi-mazzini-marmora-wxou8srj

There was also a prominent Sicilian-American Freemason named Joseph Miceli Crimi, a medical doctor who had worked as chief physician for the Palermo police force.

The Chatter Podcast: Freemasonry and Conspiracism with John Dickie

https://www.lawfareblog.com/chatter-podcast-freemasonry-and-conspiracism-john-dickie

Three reasons Catholic Popes have repeatedly condemned Freemasonry

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinio...s-have-repeatedly-condemned-freemasonry/

Masonic photo of the Freemasons of Rotterdam Freemasonry from the 1930s

"Eendracht maakt macht"

In Latin , the saying 'Unity makes strength' is Concordia res parvae cresc unt . Literally translated this means: 'Unity makes small things grow', but in Dutch the rhyming "Eendracht maakt macht" sounds a lot better.

Friday, February 3, 2023
Freemasonry, Bisi beats Conte: "We are legal, transparent and not secret"
Adherence to Freemasonry for the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte is incompatible. The Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy Stefano Bisi doesn't agree and blurts out


Freemasonry, Bisi beats Conte: "We are legal, transparent and not secret"
Stefano Bisi

The Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy of Palazzo Giustiniani, Stefano Bisi beats the former premier Giuseppe Conte and does so by writing a letter on the grandoriente.it website. "Dear Hon., Lawyer, Professor Giuseppe Conte, I read his post in which apretis verbis reiterates that membership in Masonic lodges is incompatible with membership in the Cinquestelle movement', and reassuring his members by saying that 'the formula inserted in the movement's code of ethics is very broad and certainly suitable for making membership in Masonic lodges incompatible with membership in our association, which values ??the principles of transparency and does not tolerate membership in secret associations. Faced with this last statement of yours, however, allow me to express to you the fact that I was thrilled, incredulous and indignant".

Stefano Bisi continues: "I hope that yours was just an oversight, because it is not possible that a lawyer of his kind, a man of the law, for years president of the Council of Ministers, has allowed himself to make such a gross mistake. If you have forgotten it, I remind you that Freemasonry is not and cannot even be approached or compared to a secret association and fully falls within the category of associations envisaged by article 18 of the Italian Constitution drawn up by distinguished jurists 75 years ago with Meuccio Ruini, a Freemason, whether you like it or not, president of the Commission of 75 which that Charter drafted with great shrewdness, balance and juridical rigour".

The Grand Master of Goi continues: "Allow me also to tell you that we are transparent, we do not accept transparency lessons from anyone, that we are men of light who act in the light and for the lightfor the purpose of the spiritual elevation and progress of humanity. We are so transparent that you will not find a single branch of ours in Italy where the words Grande Oriente d'Italia are not affixed to the outside. I don't know if the same happens throughout Italy in the headquarters of your Movement". "As for the choice, not new, to exclude in a prejudicial and, allow me, anti-democratic way, the members of the M5S, preventing them from entering if they had already joined Freemasonry - Bisi underlines again -, I believe that such an act speaks for itself. Depriving a citizen, who perhaps sympathizes with the Movement, from joining it, is in fact preventing the freedom to have and express one's political orientation without limitations. A lawyer in the country of guarantees should know this too. The only incompatibility,

"We Masons are and remain free men who have no prejudices and defend everyone's rights through three very lofty words that have no equal for us: Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood", concludes Bisi.

Italian freemasons will be acknowledged by the English lodges three decades after cutting their links
Grand Lodge to forgive Italy’s freemasons after 30 years in the cold.

12 posts in I believe I am the first other person to actually comment on your thread.

I'm curious - what is the fascination with Freemasonry?

The same as with the Mafias, Sicilian mafia actually owe their origins to Freemasonry. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Freemasonry has always been a den of devil-worshippers.

That may be the position of the Catholic Church, but it does not bear any relationship to reality.

Freemasonry is also different from country to country and the local culture can make Freemasonry very different in one country to another. In a predominantly Catholic country like Italy, it would naturally follow that only society's "outsiders" would join an organization widely condemned by the religion that governs the lives (at least putatively) of 99% of the populace.

In the UK where Freemasonry was born, lodges are full of largely older, white, civic-minded men who put on charitable events and pub nights.

In the USA where today there are probably the most Freemasons, it functions a lot like in the UK.

I'm sure like anything else it has been abused in Italy and other places for nefarious purposes - but because Freemasonry has been co-opted by the nefarious doesn't make the concept and society of Freemasonry itself nefarious.

The biggest problem going on in Freemasonry today is that it's dying. People don't join clubs anymore and within the next few decades, certainly outside of the UK it is likely no longer to exist outside of very small fringe groups of people. Most likely, it will die out the way other service clubs have from the Knights of Pythias to the Elks and the Oddfellows and the Foresters and all the other groups that were once part of the fabric of society of a different time.

Great post thanks. Freemasonry in itself is not bad, Freemasons made the Modern World! But there are deviant elements who use it for bad purposes.

Today its just a "club" of people who are rich and powerful and they want to be even more rich and even more powerful by joining in the same club with other powerful and rich people. It will never die, today people are joining just for the money and human greed will never stop. A lot of them are white collar criminals, not just in Italy where they are closely connect to mafia groups but everywhere in the world.

And it's really the catholic church who are the real devils!

Capitalism needs masons, that's why Freemasonry was persecuted in all the communist countries and in Nazi Germany.

Explosion at the headquarters of Greek Freemasonry in Athens
JULY 18, 2023

Explosion in the headquarters of Greek Freemasonry in Athens, solidarity of the Grand Orient of Italy arrives.
The explosion and subsequent fire caused significant damage, but fortunately thanks to the timely intervention of the police, further damage and injuries were limited.

The Masonic tradition in Greece dates back to 1811, with the foundation of the first lodge in Corfu, and thus has a long history in the country.

It is an attack that affects not only the symbolic core of brotherhood, but also the culture of tolerance and sharing of important values ??that Freemasonry represents.

“An investigation is underway to identify the perpetrators."