Secret Knowledge, Mysticism, and Feminist Power Politics
May 24 - 25 , 2003
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2003 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
The world of occult practices is playing an increasingly important role in the lives of power-oriented feminists. From lawyers to pop celebrities to massage therapists, the search is underway for special knowledge, and for new powers.
In France, known for trend-setting fashions, the number of women joining the ranks of occult Freemasonry - usually considered a male preserve - is skyrocketing.
Women in French Freemasonry has risen 600 percent since 1970, from 3,425 to
22,440, with women comprising 22 percent of all Masons
in France, according to a recent article in the French
news magazine, L'Express.
Those joining the Craft seek "a glorification of intellectual effort, and a perfection of their personality," according to L'Express.
The L'Express article, however, indicates that much more is involved in feminist Masonry than simply an intellectual exercise.
"The path of Masonry is so intense, mysterious, and incommunicable," that it is easier for a lodge member to speak with another practitioner of the Craft, than to another member of society (known as the "profane"), L'Express reported.
The "intense, mysterious, and incommunicable" aspects of Masonry give an "interior serenity," and engages its members in a "permanent search," which "one cannot communicate" to non-Masons, according to statements from female Masons to L'Express.
As the intensity of the "search" grows, and the member delves more deeply into the "mysterious" secrets of the Craft, the potential for divorce increases, if the member is married to a "profane" spouse.
Little sympathy exists for "profane" husbands. "These men do not love anyone other than beautiful idiots, and they are incapable of accepting women searching for their liberty," declared a sixty-five year-old female Mason, cited by L'Express.
The female Mason conducts her "search" for "perfection" through rituals, which "constitutes a self-analysis" within a group, but without a trained therapist, according to a psychologist and Mason.
There is a cost for the "search." Annual membership is about $275, and the member agrees to attend at least 20 lodge meetings throughout the year. Admission to the lodge is "rigorous," and confined primarily to professional women.
Female Masons are "activists," even "missionaries," spreading the Craft's gospel of liberty and self-fulfillment. France's women Masons are in the forefront of social causes, and count the liberalization of French law on artificial birth control and abortion as one of their great victories.
Another "path" to secret enlightenment for feminists is the Cabala, the post-Biblical, esoteric, magical system which came into prominence among Jews around the seventh century A.D., although practitioners claim the Cabala originated with Moses.
Feminist celebrities include Madonna, Barbara Streisand, and Liz Taylor as those turning to the Cabala for enlightenment, according to German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.
As with Masonry, the teachers of the Cabalistic mysteries promise secret knowledge and internal peace using methods which include a form of "psycho-group experience," according to Der Spiegel.
The "psycho-group experience" provides peer pressure for conformity and bonding.
As with Masonry, Cabalistic secret knowledge comes at a cost. Prices charged by some Cabalistic centers - from California to Germany - begin at $250.
One would-be initiate in Hanover, Germany, was told by a Cabala teacher that "we must do something for your personality." The charge for "doing something" was nearly $40,000.
Promises of secret knowledge, privileged communication with the Divine, personality reconstruction, and demands for considerable sums of money are elements repeated in other groups claiming a special path to God.
An astonishing parallel exists between feminist Masonry, Cabalistic practices, and centers established to promote the purported apparitions at Medjugorje, with the similarity between Masonry and the experience of those involved in the Medjugorje cult particularly striking.
Feminist Masonry, Cabala center initiates, and Medjugorje cult centers worldwide all employ a group process to insure member cohesion, while promising a special means of communication with the next world - all with a price tag.
French women involved in the Masonic Craft and many of those engaged in Medjugorje spirituality also demand conformity from spouses in their pursuit of "truth," with potential for destruction of the family if there is no submission from the "profane" spouse.
There are remarkable distinctions between feminist Masons and Medjugorje devotees. Masonic feminists have sought to carefully follow the various rituals, demands and requirements of the Craft.
Medjugorje devotees, however, continue their activities despite condemnation from two successive bishops who governed the diocese in which the town of Medjugorje is situated, and repeated financial and personal scandals involving many of the main figures in the Medjugorje movement, including the seers and their Franciscan backers.
Certain Medjugorje cult leaders are also known to urge divorce from "profane" spouses, advice not in keeping with the Catholic Church's teaching on the inviolability of marriage.
The Medjugorje phenomenon - as with feminist Masonry - continues to cause the breakup of families, alienation of spouses, while promising a special relationship with God, usually with a steep financial price.
One individual who has seen his own family destroyed by the Medjugorje cult has established a group to assist those involved, or whose relatives are involved, in religious cult activity.
In 2001, Phillip Kronzer established a foundation to assist victims of religious fraud, which provides a resource center and network for those who have been abused "mentally, physically, and financially."
Kronzer claims that his own wife, Ardie, was influenced to leave him by the Medjugorje mystic Marcia Smith, and also charges that the Medjugorje cult was responsible for business and personal financial loses in the millions of dollars.
Kronzer has spent years seeking Ardie's return, and the prosecution of those responsible for destroying his family. The results of Kronzer's efforts include highly informative video presentations, a seminal book on Medjugorje, and litigation filed against several mystics and their handlers.
Kronzer described his activities as a "day and night effort" to expose religious fraud and the reestablishment of his own family.
Copyright 2003
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