What are Masons in war and peace. Ten myths about modern Freemasonry

Many of us received an idea of ​​Freemasonry from historical and fiction literature. But is it true? There are many myths that actually have nothing to do with reality and only distort the impression of this rather ancient teaching.

Myth one. Freemasonry is a sect

Has very little in common with sects. It is, rather, an esoteric society whose members are engaged in spiritual search. Outside the Masonic lodge, the life of its members is not controlled by anyone; a person can do whatever he wants, for example, go to church.

Myth two. It is known that many outstanding people belonged to Freemasonry, for example, Peter I and Pushkin

We will never know for sure. Lists of Masons are kept within the lodges and are not made public. Therefore, we can only assume that this or that person was or is a Freemason... By the way, the members of the lodges themselves are forbidden to talk about their comrades.

Myth three. We are ruled by the Masons

Rumors of a “Masonic conspiracy” are complete nonsense. Freemasonry is not a political force and cannot in any way influence the life of the state. There is also no evidence that any representatives of government structures are members of Masonic lodges. Moreover, conversations about politics are prohibited at meetings of Masonic lodges.

Myth four. Only the “chosen ones” - representatives of the elite and bohemian circles - are accepted into the Freemasons. For example, businessmen, lawyers, scientists, writers, artists

The motto of Freemasonry is “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Therefore, theoretically, anyone can become a Freemason, regardless of their social or professional affiliation. Another thing is that you must be prepared for the fact that you will have to pay fees, as in every society, and they are not symbolic here... And in order to accept spiritual initiation, you need to have a certain level of development. Therefore, as a rule, more often people from certain social circles and with a corresponding level of material wealth come to Freemasonry.

Myth fifth. Membership in Masonic lodges may provide career or financial benefits

Nothing like that happens. The Masonic organization is a secret order where people come for spiritual interests, and not a public structure. Therefore, membership in it does not give the right to any social status. Moreover, members of the order are generally not recommended to talk about their affiliation with Freemasonry. Thus, it does not give any priorities.

Everyone who comes here... If it turns out that a person came for any social or material benefits, he is immediately eliminated.

True, one of the main activities of the order is charity. An obligatory element of the ritual tradition is the so-called “Widow's Mug”. This is a bag with which all members of the lodge are passed around, and everyone has the right to put their donation into it. These donations are then used for charitable purposes. Members of the order can also provide assistance to their brothers who find themselves in distress.

Myth six. Freemasons single out “especially worthy” ones and invite them to join the order

In fact, direct campaigning is prohibited here. A member of the order may hint that he has an acquaintance in these circles and can recommend a candidate. No more…

Myth seventh. Upon entry into the order, candidates go through complex rituals

We mainly know about the introductory rituals of Freemasonry from Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” which describes the scene of Pierre Bezukhov’s acceptance into the Freemasons. In our time, they have also remained practically unchanged: questioning under a bandage, testing by the elements... But they are all symbolic in nature.

Myth eight. Women are not accepted into the Freemasons, at least in Russia

Now mixed lodges have appeared in Russia, where women are also accepted. Although traditionally only men were selected for Masonic organizations.

The fact is that in Masonic rituals there are a lot of so-called security elements. For example, many of them are related to weapons. They enter the box under arches of swords. The first thing the initiate sees when the bandage is removed is a semicircle of people with swords in their hands, pointed at his chest. This ritual semicircle symbolizes the rays of the sun... To properly wield edged weapons, you need to be a very prepared person. I think this is why women were not allowed into the order for a long time.

Myth nine. Masons recognize each other by special signs

Oddly enough, this is true. Masons can recognize each other by a special handshake. There is also a specific word that is used by members of the lodge. But this is a rather archaic tradition.

Myth tenth. Masons are prohibited from talking about the activities of the order

This is also true. Otherwise, the existence of the order will have no meaning at all. The Masonic organization has been a closed organization from the very beginning, which means that the spiritual knowledge acquired by its members is not revealed to the uninitiated. After all, in order to perceive them, a person must have a certain level of spiritual development and preparation.

Sections: Literature

Introduction

A. Radishchev, N. Karamzin, A. Griboedov, A. Pushkin, M. Speransky, Pavel I, Alexander I, A. Suvorov, M. Kutuzov are names known to everyone. But worldwide fame is not the only thing that unites them. However, not everyone knows that they all belonged to one of the most mysterious, little-studied philosophical movements in the history of Russia - Freemasonry.

Who are the Masons? Why do disputes about Freemasonry continue today? Why did it attract great people? What are the moral aspects of the philosophy of Freemasonry and its influence on the formation of the worldview of people of past eras and the present? To answer these questions, it is necessary to turn to the history of Maonism.

The word “Mason” translated from English and French means “mason”, and with the definition “Frank” - “free mason”. The real history of Freemasonry begins with the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral in London under the direction of the architect Sir Christopher Wren. The cathedral took a long time to build - from 1675 to 1710. It was then that a wonderful idea was born: to attract public attention to this long-term construction and to raise additional funds, to found an artel of masons who would “build” the cathedral without lifting a single brick, but only thinking about it. So among them were doctors, architects, lawyers, and jewelers. At the beginning of the 18th century. Lodges arose where there were no real masons by profession. Representatives of the intelligentsia, merchants, nobles, priests and officials were attracted to the lodges by the absence of social barriers between the “brothers”, the real equality of the Masons, mutual assistance, and the protection of the interests of the “brothers” by all members of the lodges. At their meetings, the lodges discussed various theoretical and practical issues and simultaneously served as political clubs, cultural, educational and philosophical societies.

The symbols of Freemasonry were the mason's tools: a trowel, a plumb line, a compass, a square, and a white apron. At the head of each lodge was a master, a venerable. The manager of an entire union was called a grandmaster or Great Master. The first theorists of Freemasonry also appeared: Andersen and Daugulier, who provided a philosophical basis for Freemasonry and began to create its theory and structure. On June 24, 1717, in the London pub “Goose and Gridiron” a meeting of delegates of 4 lodges of “free masons” was held, who elected the Grand Lodge of England.

Soon Freemasonry spread to France and other European countries. Traditions, new symbols appeared, the Masons came up with a new history for themselves, dating back to the construction of Solomon’s Temple. The chief builder of this temple was Adoniram, who was killed for not revealing the magic word spoken to him by King Solomon. This is the name of God Jehovah. This legend of Adoniram is the basis of initiation into the degree of mastery in Masonic lodges.

Over time, noble nobles - courtiers and lords - began to join the lodges, but then the main principle of the Masonic charter was violated - non-participation in the political life of the country.

Freemasonry has evolved from a purely English phenomenon into an international organization. And European sovereigns feared that the “brothers,” who often held high positions in governments, might act based on the interests of the order in favor of other powers.

The Masons preached a universal religion. Here is how it was said about it in the “New Book of Charters”: “In our time, a person freely chooses his faith, and only one religion is truly obligatory for everyone, this is that universal, uniting religion, which consists in the duty of each of us to be kind and faithful duty, to be a man of honor and conscience, no matter what name our religion is called.”

In Russia, the first Masonic lodges appeared in the 30s of the 18th century. People joined the order for a variety of reasons. For some, it was a tribute to fashion - they were attracted by the external side of Freemasonry. Others saw in it a pure, high moral and philosophical teaching and devoted all their activities to comprehending the laws of brotherhood. Russian Freemasonry set itself the task of “knowing the secrets of existence” through Christian tolerance and “the obligation of collective work,” which included self-improvement, spiritual creativity, enlightenment, and the construction of human happiness. The study of Masonic symbols, the keeping of Masonic secrets, and the peculiarities of fraternal relations introduced a mystical mood into the order.

The “Golden Age” for Russian Freemasons was the reign of Catherine II. According to researcher T.A. Bakunina-Osorgina (publication 1939), in different cities of the country from 1760 to the early 1790s. There were about 100 Masonic lodges of different systems. Two thirds of them operated in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

With the accession of Alexander I in 1801, the “Silver Age of Russian Freemasons” began. Thousands of nobles, officers, officials and others again poured into the lodges. Masons showed themselves to be true patriots during the wars with Napoleon and the foreign campaign of the Russian army in 1813. After the war, during which “military camping lodges” were created, Freemasonry expanded even more . It was in the Masonic lodges that the future Decembrists began to become interested in politics.

At the same time, the vast majority of Masonic lodges adhered to conservative views. In the lodges, as in the 18th century, almost half of the members were foreign nationals. Alexander I's turn to reactionary politics in the early 1820s led to the fact that all secret societies, and among them, primarily Masonic lodges, were banned in Russia. This ban was confirmed by all subsequent emperors.

The Masonic tradition in Russia, which lasted 90 years, was interrupted. But certain representatives of the Russian noble intelligentsia began to join English, Italian and especially French lodges while staying abroad. In the 1880s There were already dozens of Russian subjects in French lodges of different systems. And we should not forget that Russian Freemasons made an outstanding contribution to the development of Russian culture and social life in the second half of the 18th and first quarter of the 19th centuries, to the Europeanization of the country, to the formation of the army and state apparatus. The democratic ideals of the Freemasons contributed to the softening of morals and the emergence of a people-loving ideology of the Russian intelligentsia.

The main moral and philosophical ideas of Freemasonry, in my opinion, were the following:

1. The unacceptability of a monarchical government system.
2. The Masonic ideal is a democratic republic
3. All members of society are brothers. And neither language, nor rank, nor fortune, nor wealth makes a distinction between them.
4. The goal of Freemasonry is the destruction of Christian culture and its replacement by the Masonic world.
5. Humanity is higher than the fatherland. Freemasonry must cross out the past of peoples. It must create an international movement, the consequence of which will be the ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity among peoples.
6. Ideas of national revolutions that will destroy historically established states and lead to the creation of a Masonic superstate.

The main thing in the philosophy of the Masons was and is man, his spiritual state and harmonious development. Mutual assistance among members of the order over time turned into a system of charity. Masons build and maintain hospitals, clinics, and research centers. Philanthropic funds exist thanks to voluntary contributions from fraternity members and various donations. In pre-revolutionary Russia, almshouses, schools, and orphanages were opened on the initiative of the Freemasons. But charity is only part of the order’s activities aimed at the benefit of humanity.

The progress of society is possible only in the absence of wars between and within states. Therefore, free masons oppose resolving conflicts by force. Each of the brothers can and should benefit by awakening the best qualities in themselves. Masons of all directions believe that the acquisition of knowledge in the natural and human sciences, long and patient self-training will help them create an equal and just social system, a kind of temple of freedom, equality and fraternity.

Moral and philosophical aspects of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”.

Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” was published at a time when Masonic societies in Russia had long been banned. But the events of the novel take us to the first decades of the 19th century, when Freemasonry flourished in Russia. It is known that Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov was a Freemason; he sought in the brotherhood an opportunity to comprehend and comprehend the world. His Masonic history begins in 1779: in the German city of Regensburg he became involved in the sacraments of the order. Later, traveling around Europe, Kutuzov entered the lodges of Frankfurt and Berlin, and upon returning to Russia in 1783, he was recognized by the lodges of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Mikhail Illarionovich enjoyed great authority among Masons of various degrees. Upon initiation into the seventh degree of Swedish Freemasonry, Kutuzov was given the order name Green Laurel and the motto “Glorify yourself with victories.” The life of the commander fully corresponded to this motto.

Kutuzov devoted more than 30 years to the brotherhood, it was he who stopped Napoleon, the demon of violence and lust for power in the understanding of the free masons, thereby realizing the main goal of the order - achieving peace and tranquility. In Tolstoy's novel, Kutuzov is already a man with established convictions; he is not tormented by doubts as much as it happens with Pierre Bezukhov, who is precisely concerned with issues of moral self-improvement. The bearer of these ideas in the novel “War and Peace” is Joseph Alekseevich Bazdeev, who made a strong impression on Pierre with his passionate preaching. The image of Bazdeev is based on a real person - Joseph Alekseevich Pozdeev, very popular among Moscow masons. This circumstance, apparently, forced us to leave the character’s name and patronymic unchanged and make minor changes to his last name.

Favorite heroes of L.N. Tolstoy go through a difficult spiritual path in a painful search for truth. They get carried away by false ideas, get mistaken, change internally and ultimately approach the ideal of simplicity.

Pierre Bezukhov's entry into the Masonic society occurred during a difficult period of his life, associated with his marriage to Helen Kuragina. He suffers, realizing that he was not only deceived, but also deceived others. He considered himself guilty for marrying without love - this plunges Pierre into a deep crisis. “What's wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why do you need to live and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? - he asks himself. These reflections on the meaning of life are characteristic of Tolstoy's positive heroes.

Pierre's coming to Freemasonry was an important event, as it would help him find a way out of his inner turmoil. He “thought and thought and thought and thought,” the author reports. But the more he thought, the “darker, more confusing and more hopeless the past, future and, most importantly, the present seemed to him.”

During such reflections, when Pierre was immersed “in the highest mindset that a person can achieve,” at that moment a stranger entered the room. It was the old Mason Bazdeev, who came to Pierre to convert him. He immediately started talking about Freemasonry and suggested introducing Pierre to the “brotherhood of free masons,” where he would find peace. In the penetrating gaze of the freemason, Pierre “felt hope and reassurance.” A week later, Bezukhov’s reception was scheduled “at the St. Petersburg Northern Lights Lodge.” Pierre was accepted into the lodge in compliance with all rituals. The new life instilled new strength in Pierre, and after initiation into the Freemasons he was “cheerful and restrained, as if making fun of the whole world, knowing the truth.”

From the day he was accepted into the “Brotherhood of Freemasons”, “a new life of activity and self-satisfaction” began for Pierre. Soon Pierre, supported by his fellow Masons in his long-standing intentions, went to the estates “with a very clearly defined goal: to benefit his twenty thousand souls of peasants.”

Pierre finds the meaning of life in the philosophy of moral self-improvement as a means of eliminating evil in oneself and the world. Why does Pierre, being an atheist and considering religion “unfair,” join the Masonic society? Because I was attracted by the formulation of the goals of this society: by purifying and correcting the heart and mind of individual members of society, thereby correcting the human race and “confronting the evil that reigns in the world.” And he sincerely accepted the new teaching and believed in it. Pierre perceived Freemasonry not as a religious sect with its external ritualism, but as “the best single expression of the best, eternal sides of humanity.” This decision gave him for a time the illusion of a way out of the impasse caused by the feeling of the purposelessness of existence. It opened the way for him to the activity for which he yearned. He had so many doubts and hesitations that he reached out to those who had faith and conviction in something: “Pierre, with a sinking heart... experienced a joyful feeling of calm, renewal and return to life.” So, the desire to find something stable, a goal in life for himself, leads Pierre to Freemasonry...

Leo Tolstoy’s words are well known that he does not see a significant difference between the basic principles of his teaching and the philosophical ideas of Freemasonry.

He sees the meaning of true life in spiritual love for the world and for one’s neighbor as for oneself. In his opinion, for people who have found the joy of life in spiritual love for the world, the fear of death does not exist. The spiritual being of man is immortal and eternal; it does not die after the cessation of bodily existence. A person’s path to true life is concretized in the doctrine of moral self-improvement of a person, which includes the commandments of Jesus Christ from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. The cornerstone of the self-improvement program is the commandment of non-resistance to evil by violence. Evil cannot be destroyed by evil; the only means of combating violence is abstinence from violence: only good, encountering evil, but without being infected by it, is capable of defeating it in active spiritual opposition to evil. Violence should not be proclaimed as a principle of life, as its law.

Tolstoy's thoughts about victory over evil and the implementation of the Christian ideal of universal brotherhood are consonant with the ideals of Freemasonry about the moral improvement of every person.

...So, “Pierre unwittingly became the head of St. Petersburg Freemasonry. He set up lodges, recruited new members, took care of uniting various lodges... He gave his money for the construction of churches and replenished, as far as he could, alms collections, for which most members were stingy and careless. He almost alone, at his own expense, supported the home of the poor, established by the order in St. Petersburg...”, Tolstoy narrates. Pierre soon becomes convinced that many Masons entered the society in order to acquire connections with strong and wealthy people, of whom there were many. “From under the Masonic aprons and signs, he saw on them the uniforms and crosses that they sought in life.” Pierre saw that many representatives of high society, who had no less wealth than he, and who had taken the Masonic oath to give all their property for their neighbors, shied away from giving even a penny alms, and doubts began to creep into his soul. “In the midst of his studies and hobbies, Pierre, however, after a year began to feel how the ground of Freemasonry on which he stood was increasingly slipping away from under his feet, the more firmly he tried to stand on it.” Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with his activities. He did not doubt Freemasonry, but suspected that “Russian Freemasonry had taken the wrong path and deviated from its source.” To understand everything, he goes abroad. There he gains the trust of many high-ranking officials, penetrates into many secrets, is elevated to the highest degree, and brings the plan of the order to Russia. This entire plan was based on “to form strong, virtuous people, bound by the unity of conviction, which consists in persecuting vice and stupidity everywhere and with all their might and patronizing talents and virtue.” In St. Petersburg, he spoke to the “brothers”, spoke for a long time, but his speech made not so much a strong impression as excitement and was received coldly. His proposals were not accepted, and Pierre, without waiting for formalities, left the box and went home.

Pierre failed to complete the work of self-improvement. The ideas of the Freemasons, which seemed to be close to him, were unable to help him in solving all his problems, and his activities did not give the desired results.

Moral and philosophical aspects of modern Freemasonry.

But Freemasonry continues to live. In the 90s of the twentieth century. on the initiative of the French centers of Freemasonry, after a more than 70-year hiatus, Masonic lodges appeared in Russia. New domestic Masons adopted the moral and philosophical ideas, traditions and spirit of the order, developed over the centuries-old history of the brotherhood. Today, Freemasons call themselves not a secret society, but a society with secrets, and claim that the brotherhood is exclusively concerned with the preservation of spiritual values. “Our object is the spiritual world of man, not society.” According to unofficial data, in Russia there are 26 lodges in different regions, with about 500 members. On March 7, 2005, representatives of Masonic organizations from 12 countries of the world met in Riga. Among the Masonic lodges legally operating in Russia is the Grand Lodge of Russia.

“The Grand Lodge of Russia is the only regular Masonic organization on the territory of Russia, recognized by more than ninety regular Grand Lodges of the world Brotherhood,” as written on the official website of the Grand Lodge of Russia of the World Order of Freemasons. Lodge officials say they avoid getting involved in politics. When asked whether among modern Masons there are people from the world of business and politics, they answer that “there may be.”

What will the philosophy of Freemasonry be in the future? Will it become an influential idea of ​​our time or will Freemasonry attract only its secrets and mysterious rituals? Only time can answer all these questions.

Bibliography

1. Aksenova M.D.. Encyclopedia for children. T. 5. History of Russia. Part 2. “Avanta +”. M., 2001
2. Bashilov B. History of Russian Freemasonry, M., “Ruslo” - “Community”, 1992.
3. Dolinina N. G. Through the pages of War and Peace. "Children's literature". L., 1978
4. Elmanova N.S., Savicheva E.M. Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Historian. “Pedagogy-Press”. M., 1993
5. Ermilov V.V. Tolstoy the artist and the novel “War and Peace”. M., 1961
6. Zaidenshnur E.E.“War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy. "Book". M., 1966
7. Tolstoy L.N. Collection cit.: In 12 volumes. M., 1987. – T. 4.

The events of 1917 that took place in Russia changed the fate of the world. Humanity has experienced shocks that have caused enormous social cataclysms. A revolution has begun, the era of building a new world order. Lenin, who personified the godless, godless government, called the mirror of the 17th revolution not the Decembrists, not the terrorist revolutionaries. Lenin called Leo Tolstoy the mirror of the bloody Russian revolution. From what? We are accustomed to seeing Tolstoy as a humanist and a brilliant writer, but Lenin knew what he was saying, pointing to his predecessor. Osfald Spengler in his famous work “The Decline of Europe” calls Tolstoy the father of Bolshevism. And we again ask ourselves the question: “Why?” In the book “Leo Tolstoy in the Modern World,” Lomonov, a prominent researcher of the writer’s life and work, writes: “Little is given to the history of Tolstoy’s struggle with religion and the church. We do not yet have a single work in which documents were systematized, analyzed and evaluated Tolstoy's struggle with the clergy. This topic still awaits further research."
So, what turned Tolstoy into a person who personally hated Christ and Christ’s Church? What prompted him to imagine himself as the creator of a new religion and a prophet for all humanity? There is still a widespread view that there was no antagonism between Tolstoy and the Orthodox Church, and that until the end of his days Tolstoy remained a philosopher-God-seeker, and moreover, a preacher of a special, purified Christianity. Even Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky, in his history of Russian philosophy, evaluates the activities of Leo Tolstoy in exactly this way. Many people think that Tolstoy’s divergence from the Church is a fatal misunderstanding. And even Berdyaev, who noted that Tolstoy was alien to the religion of Christ, like few others, at the same time argued that Tolstoy “did a lot to awaken religious interests in the society of atheists,” and that it was for this that he was excommunicated from the Church, namely for their religious quests. But Tolstoy himself repeatedly refuted his defenders. And he refutes them even after his death.
One must still understand what Tolstoy’s teaching was, what the goals of his teaching were, and finally, who Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was after all. But everything is in order.
It is known that from the age of 15 Tolstoy became interested in reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom he later called his life teacher. Tolstoy removed the pectoral cross from his chest, replacing it with a medallion with a portrait of Rousseau. Renunciation occurred in the soul of a 15-year-old boy. Christ was rejected, His place was taken by Rousseau.
Who was Jean-Jacques Rousseau? In addition to well-known phrases about the famous writer and philosopher of the 18th century, quite interesting facts about the personality and deeds of Rousseau have been preserved. His father was a Genevan watchmaker, a selfish adventurer who also worked as a dance teacher. His name was Isaac. Young Rousseau followed his father through all the stages of his depraved life. German psychiatrist Wilhelm Lange Elbaum, in his major study “Genius, Madness and Glory,” published in Munich in 1928, analyzes the personality of the ideologist of the French Revolution: “Rousseau was repeatedly declared crazy. Degeneration from the cradle. Exhibitionism. Mosachism. Fetishism. Kleptomania. "Persecution mania with delusions of grandeur. Hypochondria. Schizophrenia, which by the age of 40 had taken on a chronic, paranoid form." Having become famous, Rousseau threw in his lot with a peasant woman. As Rousseau himself writes, she was ugly, illiterate, vulgar and narrow-minded to such an extent that she was unable to determine what time of day it was. Russo cohabited with this cowwoman, Teresa, and had five children, who, according to Teresa herself, were from other casual relationships. By the way, then Rousseau abandoned all his children, they ended up in an orphanage.
Rousseau was a brilliant philosopher. Here is the most important idea that once dawned on Jean Rousseau: “Enlightenment is harmful, and culture itself is a lie and a crime.” This thought struck Rousseau so much that, in his own words, he became intoxicated and lay for half an hour under a tree. When he came to, his vest was wet with tears. Let us note that Tolstoy also began to preach this same idea at one time. The brilliant philosopher Rousseau wrote letters to the Lord God and, instead of a mailbox, placed them under the altar of the cathedral, says one of the most famous criminologists and psychiatrists of the last century, Professor Lambrodo. Since Rousseau did not receive any response letters from God, he “logically” concluded that there is no God. By the way, Rousseau was an apostate three times: first, he renounced Catholicism, turning to Protestantism, then he renounced Protestantism, and, finally, he renounced his religion of the religions of philosophers.
It is no coincidence that we talk in some detail about Rousseau - Rousseau the man and Rousseau the philosopher. We need to understand who was the unshakable ideal for Tolstoy throughout his life. Tolstoy was a diligent student of his mentor. In August 1901, the already mature Tolstoy wrote: “They were unfair to Rousseau; the greatness of his thought was not recognized. I read all of Rousseau, all 20 volumes. I more than admired him - I idolized him. At the age of 15, I wore a medallion around my neck with "with his portrait instead of a pectoral cross. Many of its pages are so close to me that it seems to me that I wrote them myself."
Rousseau is rightly called the father of the French Revolution. Leo Tolstoy is a mirror of the Russian revolution. Let's take Kenneth Goff's book "The Father of Communism - Satanism." By the way, the author of the book knows his subject very well: in the past he was one of the organizers and leaders of the US Communist Party. Kenneth Goff writes: "A wave of Luciferianism swept through Russia before the revolution. The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. However, neither was made for economic or political reasons to alleviate the lot of the poor. The fact is that both of these revolutions were the result of secret planning to so that a certain system, an invisible empire, a hidden organization can achieve its dark goals." Rousseau, by the way, like other ideologists of the 1789 revolution, was a Freemason. The father of the French Revolution is also called the father of democracy. Rousseau, taking the basis of democracy from the English freemason Loco, wrote in 1760: “It is impossible for great monarchies to last long. We are approaching a crisis, a century of revolutions.” Rousseau declared that the people themselves should establish laws, rights and religious beliefs. But to achieve this, states must be abolished. In fact, Tolstoy later said the same thing. Why? The reason is very simple: the Apostle Paul in his 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians says that the Antichrist will take over the world when the foundations of statehood are overthrown. Tolstoy, as is easy to see, fiercely took up arms against the state structure of the Russian people. Now it's not hard to understand why. It is also not difficult to understand why this word - “democracy” - still remains the banner of the destroyers of the God-created foundations of human existence.
Before we go further, let's turn to history, which can clarify a lot for us. Facts shed light on Tolstoy's mystery. A mystery that still remains unsolved for many. To do this, you need to go back to the 14th century, since, according to Tolstoy’s grandson Sergei Mikhailovich, “in every bend of the Tolstoy family saga Leo Tolstoy is seen.” The Tolstoy family traces its origins to the German Indris, who came from Germany in 1352 with two sons and three thousand troops. The certificate of the count's dignity of Tolstoy calls him Henry. This Indris-Henry was in reality Count Henri De Maus of Flanders, a Templar crusader. The biographer of Leo Tolstoy, his grandson Sergei Mikhailovich, somehow very vaguely reports that after the failure of the crusaders in Cyprus, Indris, aka Heinrich, aka Henri De Mos, went to Russia. What failure in Cyprus forced the noble crusader to go so far? A little history and everything will become clear.
When Jerusalem was taken from the Christians in 1187, the Knights Templar moved to Acre, a seaside fortress in Syria. A century later, Acre fell under the attacks of the Saracens, and the Templars moved to Cyprus. At the beginning of the 14th century, the French king Philip the Fair, with the support of Pope Clement V, defeated the Order of the Templars, exposed worshipers of Satan. So this is the failure in Cyprus that forced the influential and wealthy crusader to wander around the world. It must be assumed that it was no coincidence that the Templar Count Henri De Maus with three thousand troops ended up in Muscovy. The ancestor of Lev Nikolaevich made a successful career in Russia.
Here, to understand the essence of our research, we need to make a brief excursion into the field of heraldry. The fact is that the coat of arms of the Tolstoy family provides food for the most serious thoughts. The coat of arms is surmounted by a crown. But there is no cross on it. Why? The answer is found in the coat of arms itself - under the crown there is an oblique cross - a symbol of Scottish Freemasonry, for whose adherents violence is the main means to achieve the goal. Note that Vernadsky in his book “Freemasonry during the reign of Catherine II” reports that according to the existing document - the written oath of Peter I - the Russian Tsar was received into the lodge of St. Andrew of the Scottish Rite. At the direction of the same researcher, among the manuscripts of the freemason Lensky there is written evidence confirming that Peter I and Lefort in Holland were accepted into the Templars. So, in the upper part of the family coat of arms there is a symbol of Scottish Freemasonry, in the lower part on a red background there is a flaming star, a pentogram. One of the highest masons of the 19th century, Papus, explains the meaning of the pentogram this way: “The secret light is depicted in the form of a pentagonal star, it was a symbol of a person emitting from himself the mysterious light of Lucifer.” On the Tolstoy coat of arms, in addition to other Masonic symbols, there is also this sign of the Antichrist. The flaming star is located on a red field, and the red color, according to the teachings of the arbiters of the mystery of lawlessness, indicates the end of the great work. Strictly speaking, this means nothing more than the coming of the Antichrist into the world. By the way, the Tolstoy coat of arms at the beginning of the 19th century had the image of a six-pointed star called the “shield of David” - a symbol of Judaism. The grandson of Tolstoy, who compiled the family tree of the Tolstoy family in the 50s of our century, meaningfully replaced the “shield of David” with a pentogram - the sign of Lucifer.
At the end of the 17th century, the Tolstoys became very noticeable in Russian history. The descendant of the crusader knight, Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy, turned out to be a faithful servant of the emperor - the Templar Emperor... The enemy of the Church and his own people. In 1717, Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy was sent by the sovereign to Naples on a secret mission, where Tsarevich Alexei and his mistress were at that time. Tolstoy carried out the instructions of Peter I. By deception, acting through the prince’s beloved, he returned Alexei to Moscow, where he then took a direct part in his torture. The Emperor generously rewarded the emissary and the executioner, granted him an estate and appointed him head of the secret chancellery. It would be worth noting that Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy diligently studied Machiavelli, translating the work of a politician who later became famous for his exceptional unprincipledness.
Then the Tolstoy family became closely related to the Volkonskys, the most notable of whom were Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, a Voltairian Mason, and Sergei Volkonsky, a Decembrist Mason. Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, Tolstoy’s grandfather, by the way, pointedly refused to build a church on his Yasnaya Polyana estate, which shocked the entire respectable population of the area. In this regard, the biographer of the Tolstoy family reports that there was an opinion that Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky belonged to the Masonic lodge. Here it is worth mentioning Leo Tolstoy’s uncle, Fyodor Ivanovich, in whom, as the biographer says, traits characteristic of the entire Tolstoy family are revealed. In his memoirs, Leo Tolstoy writes about him: “I would like to tell a lot about this extraordinary, attractive person.” But Lev Nikolaevich doesn’t tell... Let’s do it for him. Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy was a gambler, a duelist, and a thrill-seeker - he killed 10 people. Fyodor Tolstoy married a gypsy woman, who bore him 11 children. For some reason he named his first child, a daughter, Sarah. Tolstoy's children died one after another. Fyodor Tolstoy saw this as God's punishment for murder in duels. After the death of each child, he wrote down his name next to his victims and marked: “Quit.” 10 children died this way. But the only daughter who survived was not completely normal. Tolstoy also notes that his uncle learned magic from the gypsies.
What about Leo Tolstoy himself?
From infancy, he was brought up in an environment that was alien to both faith and national life. The strongest impressions of childhood, according to Lev Nikolaevich himself, were associated with his grandmother Countess Pelageya Nikolaevna Tolstoy. Often staying at night with his grandmother, he witnessed how the blind serf-storyteller told the countess bedtime stories. The darkness of the night was illuminated only by the weak light of the lamp near the icon, from which prayers were not read, but the phantasmagoria of Scheherazade were narrated. The biographer reports: “Levushka was completely absorbed by the mysterious sight of his grandmother, her shadow wavering on the wall, the sight of an old man with white, sightless eyes telling strange stories.”
Leo Tolstoy, brought up in this way, discovered strange behavior in early childhood. One day, just to make a statement, he jumped out of a high second-floor window. Surprisingly, the boy only suffered a concussion. Another time he cut his eyebrows - purely out of a strange fantasy. While still just a child, he made it a habit, when entering the hall where guests who had come to see the Tolstoys were, to turn his back to them and bow with his back. Figuratively speaking, he continued to do this even at a conscious age, but already to the Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox people, and to all readers too.
Lev Nikolayevich, in recounting the story of his first love on the pages of the story “Childhood,” kept silent, for example, how, out of jealousy, he pushed the object of his first love from a high balcony only because a 9-year-old girl did not speak to him. After that, she could not recover for a long time and limped for a long time.
In the Tolstoys' house the Gospel was not held in high esteem. On the part of adults, Tolstoy did not see effective examples of piety. The conversations in the house were completely different. Many biographers mention a very curious circumstance of Tolstoy's early childhood. Listening to the conversations of adults, the children were imbued with the idea of ​​​​the “secret about the ant brothers.” The main thing in this legend was the “green stick”, on which the secret is supposedly written on how to make all people happy. In his declining years, Tolstoy wrote: “The ideal of “ant brothers” clinging to each other with love - only not under two armchairs hung with scarves, but under the entire vault of heaven, all the people of the world - remained the same for me.” These ideas about the magical “green stick” and “ant brothers” reflected the conversations of adults transformed by children's consciousness. This was precisely the time when the whole society was excited by the cause of the Decembrists. Among those convicted were many relatives and friends of the Tolstoys, such as their distant relative Pavel Kaloshin, a member of the very first organization of Decembrist conspirators, founded by the Muravyov brothers. Kaloshin was one of the compilers of the “Green Book” - the program of the Decembrist union “Prosperity”. The Decembrists honored their predecessors - the destroyers of the divinely established foundations of the existence of human societies. In the conversations of adults, heard by children, they talked not only about the Muravyov brothers, but also about the Moravian brothers. This is also noted by some researchers, such as the German biographer of Tolstoy, Janko Lavrin, who cites the following facts to this idea: the sect of the Moravian brothers professed a teaching that surprisingly coincides with the views of Tolstoy - the Moravian brothers fought against the Church, denied the hierarchy of authorities and taught not to resist evil . Note that these ideas, characteristic of the mature Tolstoy, were expressed by the Moravian brothers back in the middle of the 15th century.
Decembrists Muravyovs, Moravian brothers, “ant brothers” - all these are links of one chain, the chain of fight against God. There is something that sheds light on the content of this game: the children played “ant brothers” in the dark, covering themselves with a thick blanket from the light. Why? This is not only an unconscious imitation of adults who secretly talked about the Muravyovs, the “Green Book”, and the Moravian brothers - this is a manifestation of the weeds of evil weeds sown in children’s souls. The Gospel of John says about those who fight against God: “They loved darkness rather than light.” The Tolstoy children played “ant brothers” in complete darkness.
A year before his death, Leo Tolstoy’s father, Nikolai Ilyich, was hit by a massive chandelier in church during a service and fell right on his head. Leo Tolstoy's father miraculously survived. In the summer of 1837, leaving his apartment, Nikolai Ilyich suddenly fell unconscious on the street. Without coming to his senses, without the usual unction for an Orthodox Christian and without repentance, he died. The death of his father was a great shock for Leo Tolstoy, who was only 9 years old at the time.
Tolstoy's mother, nee Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, being raised by a father who adhered to Voltairian views and was known as an outright atheist, was alien to the desire to raise her children in the spirit of Christian piety. But often a person comes to repentance at the threshold of death. Dying, Maria Nikolaevna wished to bless her children. All the children approached the dying mother, who, with an increasingly weakening hand, made the sign of the cross over each one. When it was 2-year-old Leva’s turn, he, seeing his mother raising her hand to cross her son, screamed wildly and, resting and writhing with his whole body, escaped from the hands of those who tried to bring him under the blessing. Alas! This turned out to be a prophecy of the entire subsequent life of Leo Tolstoy - a fighter against God, a hater of Christ and a furious blasphemer of the Church of Christ.
What constituted the first half of Leo Tolstoy’s fate, he himself describes in his confession: duels, gambling, fornication of all kinds, lies, theft, violence, murder. Tolstoy says that he has changed and found the meaning of life, but, as you know, a tree is known by its fruits. But what are the fruits of Tolstoy's transformation? Of Tolstoy's 12 children, 4 die. Tolstoy’s daughter Tatyana had 5 stillborn children, and the second daughter Maria had the same thing. Tolstoy's son Lev gives birth to his first child and immediately dies. When Tolstoy was already over 60, he preached complete chastity and blasphemed marriage. And at that time he conceived a 13th child, accusing his wife of having seduced him into sin. Tolstoy drives his wife to thoughts of suicide, and writes in his diary that she is “a stone around his neck.” And Tolstoy himself hides the gun and ropes from himself - he is haunted by the thought of committing suicide. And this is the already transformed Tolstoy, a philosopher, a genius who, as he himself claims, has found the truth.
When Tolstoy was already over 80, and his wife was over 60, he got a secretary with the significant surname Chertkov, to whom Tolstoy bequeathed the rights to his works in September 1909. The family nightmare reached its climax - the wife accused the count of pederasty, threatening to shoot Chertkov in hysterics. And all this in front of adult children. The solution is in a diary entry dated November 29, 1851. Tolstoy writes: “I have never loved a woman. But I fell in love with men quite often. I fell in love with a man, not yet knowing what pederasty was.” Tolstoy's wife knew what she was talking about, she knew the contents of her husband's diaries and knew his life.
Tolstoy's thirteenth child, Alexandra, did not marry. I was content with my friend Tatyana Taufos Rappoport. Subsequently, Alexandra Tolstaya moved to America and created the famous Tolstoy farm, in which many of Tolstoy’s ideological students, revolutionaries who diligently implemented Lev Nikolaevich’s ideas in life, found shelter. Among them was Princess Panina, one of the richest women in pre-revolutionary Russia. Lenin began his career in her house. Makhno Zhigulev also lived out his life on Tolstoy’s farm, and he wrote about himself this way: “I was in all left-wing parties and organizations. To the left there can only be a madhouse.” It was in such a house - Tolstoy's farm - that Zhigulev ended up. This is not just a metaphor. The fact is that before Alexandra Tolstaya and Taufos Rappoport began to manage the farm, there really was a shelter for mentally handicapped children. Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, also visited Tolstoy’s farm. In the new “Russian Word” dated March 4, 1958, a curious message flashed that, in addition to the CIA, Tolstoy’s farm was financed by a strange organization with the strange name “Saints and Sinners.”
The information provided by Max Nordau in his book “Degeneration” is interesting. In it, Dr. Nordau examines Tolstoy as a writer and as a person. Instead of a preface, Nordau writes: “The degenerate are not always criminals, debauchees, anarchists or madmen. Sometimes they are writers and representatives of the arts. Some of these degenerates,” writes Dr. Nordau, “in literature and music, in the world of art, have become fashionable in recent years and have been hailed as creators of a new art and heralds of future centuries.” Nordau continues: “Whatever merits Tolstoy’s artistic talent may have, it is not to him that he owes his world fame and influence on his contemporaries. War and Peace and Anna Karenina had almost no readers outside Russia. Only the “Kreutzer Sonata”, which appeared in 1889, spread his name to all corners of the globe. The short story was translated into all European languages ​​and published in hundreds of thousands of copies. Millions of people read him passionately. From that moment on, Western public opinion placed him in the forefront of modern writers. “The Kreutzer Sonata” won the fame that was not given to the author of “War and Peace”, “Cossacks” and “Anna Karenina” for so long.” What is her mystery? There, a husband kills his wife, allegedly out of jealousy towards his wife. In fact, the reason is the husband’s jealousy of his lover. Therefore, Tolstoy’s story is cited in many medical studies on psychopathology as a vivid example of latent, that is, hidden homosexuality. It should be noted: Tolstoy’s wife simply hated the Kreutzer Sonata. On February 12, 1891, Sofya Andreevna wrote in her diary: “I myself felt in my heart that this story was directed at me. She immediately wounded me, humiliated me in the eyes of the whole world and destroyed the last love between us.”
Nordau continues: “The essential point of Tolstoy’s teaching on morality is the mortification of the flesh. Every relationship with a woman is unclean, including marriage. "The Kreutzer Sonata" reproduces this teaching in images." Tolstoy puts his understanding of marriage into the mouth of Pornyshev, a murderer out of jealousy. He says: “Honeymoon. After all, the name is just vile. This is something like what I experienced when I learned to smoke. I wanted to vomit and drooled, and I swallowed it. And I pretended that I was pleased.”
In his story “Family Happiness,” Tolstoy assures that a man and a woman, even if they marry for love, after marriage must become enemies. Tolstoy, according to a psychiatrist, describes degenerates. But he does not say this, and transfers this measure to all people. For what? Since school, we have been told about the great humanist and philanthropist Tolstoy. However, this is not at all true. In the spring of 1857, Tolstoy visited Paris. He had fun: the Louvre, Versailles, public women in the evenings, operas, theatre. The philanthropist Tolstoy ended up in Paris in order, as he himself admitted to his relative Alexandra Andreevna, to “test himself”: “I went to a public execution on the guillotine. On a spring day at dawn, the execution was to take place on Rocquette Square.” Tolstoy, in a letter to the literary critic Botkin, confirms that he achieved what he was looking for and received a strong impression from what he saw: “A skillful and elegant machine, through which a strong, fresh, healthy young man was killed in an instant.” However, such cases are typical for Tolstoy, who loves all humanity, throughout his life - from childhood to old age. By the way, after, so to speak, watching the execution, he went to Switzerland, where he spent what he said was the happiest summer of his life in Cloran - in picnics and amusements. This is the whole of Tolstoy, a humanist and lover of humanity.
Another important fact from the life of Leo Tolstoy remains hidden from his biographers and literary scholars: one of the famous Italian Freemasons, Michele Muramarco, devotes significant space to Tolstoy on the pages of his thorough book on the apologetics of Freemasonry. The Italian freemason Muramarco unmistakably recognizes Tolstoy as a fellow freemason. Why? Based on the deeds, life and deeds captured in the writer’s works. Christ said: “By their works you will know them.” However, there is evidence of Tolstoy’s affiliation with Freemasonry. This evidence is kept in the house of Leo Tolstoy on Prechistenka. In the summer of 1999, objects of the Masonic cult that belonged to Tolstoy personally were completely openly displayed: a Masonic ritual hammer, white gloves of a lodge member, a family Masonic ring with an image of a skull and crossbones.
There are many mysteries in the life of Leo Tolstoy. In this regard, let us quote Maxim Gorky, who once said something important for us about Tolstoy: “Besides everything he talks about, there are many things about which he is always silent. Even in his diary he is silent. And he will probably never tell anyone. This something only occasionally slipped in hints in his conversations, and hinted at it in two notebooks of his diary, which he gave me to read. Those initiated into the mystery of evil know this dark secret.”
In his letter to Vergshagen dated March 7, 1905, Tolstoy writes: “I am very glad that I was and remain a Freemason in my convictions. I have always had deep respect for this organization since childhood. And I think that Freemasonry has done a lot of good for humanity.” When Russian Freemasons opened their Parisian branch in 1901 under the innocuous sign of “Russian Higher School of Social Sciences,” Leo Tolstoy became the honorary chairman of the board of trustees.
In the spring of 1857, Tolstoy visited Paris. He had fun: the Louvre, Versailles, public women in the evenings, operas, theatre. The philanthropist Tolstoy ended up in Paris in order, as he himself admitted to his relative Alexandra Andreevna, to “test himself”: “I went to a public execution on the guillotine.” Tolstoy does not go out of idle curiosity to watch a man’s head be cut off by a sharp guillotine knife. One of the most famous Masons of the twentieth century, Mircea Iliade, writes in his famous book “The Sacred and the Profane” that for a Freemason “death is the highest degree of initiation, the beginning of a new spiritual existence.” Another “free mason,” Renaud de la Ferriere, in his work on Freemasonry, confirms: “In the process of initiation, a Freemason turns into another person. This is the Masonic secret." Indeed, those who enter Freemasonry experience a mystical death. This is the gloomy ritual of the “freemasons”. A person symbolically dies for God, becoming a participant in death - eternal death. What has been said, I believe, is quite enough to understand many mysterious moments in the fate of Tolstoy and get the key to many, many works of Leo Tolstoy, which have a special secret signature of Masonic ideas.
Dr. Nordau believes that it was not his novels that brought Tolstoy fame, but his philosophy - the philosophy of pathology. The main commandment of Tolstoyism is non-resistance to evil through violence, that is, “do not resist vice!”, “don’t judge!”, “down with the courts, the troops, the state!” Tolstoy is an anarchist in his teaching, because anarchy is a necessary stage in preparation for revolution. Nordau writes: “The path to happiness according to Tolstoy consists in the denial of science and knowledge.” As the main herald of morality, he gives an immoral theory of non-resistance to evil and crime, distribution of property and destruction of the human race through complete abstinence. Tolstoy insists on the harm of knowledge and the healing power of ignorance. Nordau says: “All the spiritual characteristics of Tolstoy can be perfectly explained by the well-known and characteristic features of degeneration.”
Tolstoy writes about himself: “Skepticism drove me to a state close to madness.” In his confession, he admits: “I felt that I was not entirely healthy mentally.” Lambrosa, analyzing Tolstoy as a psychiatrist, says: “We are not dealing with a noble desire for knowledge, pushing Tolstoy to questions about the purpose and meaning of life, but with the disease of a degenerate. With doubt and speculation that is completely fruitless.”
All this is confirmed by Lev Nikolaevich himself. Thus, in a letter to his cousin Alexandra Tolstoy dated October 18, 1857, he writes: “You have to struggle, get confused, struggle, make mistakes, start and quit, and start again, and quit again, and always struggle and decide. And calmness is spiritual meanness.” This is exactly what Lev Nikolaevich did for the rest of his unhappy life.
It is impossible not to mention one more circumstance that left a deep mark on Tolstoy’s fate. In the summer of 1869, Tolstoy experienced the horror of being abandoned by God. In a letter to his wife, he talks about it this way: “It was 2 o’clock in the morning. I'm terribly tired. Suddenly I was attacked by melancholy... Fear... Horror... Such as I have never experienced.” 15 years later, Tolstoy wrote the story “Notes of a Madman.” This story, says Ivan Bunin, is essentially an exact reproduction of what is written in the letter to Sofya Andreevna. There are these words in the Bible: “...wickedness, condemned by its own testimony, is fearful, and persecuted by conscience, it always invents horrors. Fear is the deprivation of help from reason. The less hope there is within, the greater the unknown of the cause that produces the torment appears” (Book of Wisdom of Solomon).
Now let’s quote the words from Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy’s book “Father”. She cites the diagnosis that the famous psychiatrist Russalimo made to Tolstoy. “The diagnosis is disappointing. Degenerate double constitution. Paranoid and hysterical with a predominance of the former.” By the way, Russalimo later diagnosed another madman, whose corpse is still on public display on Red Square in Moscow.

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Tolstoy wrote about the historical truthfulness of the main characters in his work: “When I write historical things, I like to be true to the smallest details of reality.” “In those days they also loved, envied, sought truth, virtue, were carried away by passions; the mental and moral life was the same, sometimes even more refined than now...”

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Who are the Masons, where and when did they appear? According to the most common of them, the emergence of Freemasonry dates back to the times of King Solomon, who entrusted the coppersmith (architect) from Tire, Hiram Abiff, with the management and supervision of the construction of the temple in Jerusalem.

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The version that the ancestors of the Lodges of Freemasons (originally a lodge was simply a place for storing working tools and rest) were the Roman Colleges of Craftsmen or Comatians was also similar to the first.

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The following legend indicates that Freemasonry comes from the Order of the Templars (Templars), which was defeated by the French king Philip IV and Pope Clement V for “Satanism, defamation of Christianity and money-grubbing”

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The way out of the impasse was for Pierre to meet Osip Alekseevich Bazdeev “What is bad? What is good? What should we love, what should we hate? Why live and what am I? What is life and death? What force controls everything?” he asked himself. And there was no answer to any of these questions." “No matter what he started to think about, he returned to the same questions that he could not resolve and could not stop asking himself. It was as if the main screw on which his whole life was held was twisted in his head. The screw would not go any further , did not come out, but spun around, not grabbing anything, still on the same groove, and it was impossible to stop turning it.”

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Rite of Initiation “Taking a handkerchief from the closet, Vellarsky placed it over Pierre’s eyes.” Pierre’s gaze stops at the robes of the Masons. They have “hands covered with leather gloves.” Gloves (white) in Masonic symbolism denoted purity of morals, “purity of hands.” The Mason wears a "white leather apron". This is a cufflink made of lamb skin, which in Masonic symbolism denoted purity of thoughts and innocence. The Mason "had something like a necklace on his neck."

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Rite of Passage “As a sign of obedience, I ask you to undress. - Pierre took off his tailcoat, vest and left boot as directed by the rhetorician. The Mason opened the shirt on his left chest... gave him a shoe for his left foot." The sword in Masonic symbolism meant justice as one of the strictest laws in the world; if injustice is hidden in the heart of the initiate, its fruits will find him in the future. At the same time, this is a reminder of God’s punishment awaiting the initiate if in the future he breaks the oaths given to the order and betrays its secrets.

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Initiation rite Bezukhov hears the “Masonic knocking of hammers.” The knocking of hammers symbolized the trials that befall the initiate, the new brother. A hammer is a tool of spiritual labor in Masonic symbolism, used to cut off “unnecessary material”; An ordinary Masonic hammer is a mason's hammer with the non-working side of the butt, which serves as a wedge for splitting stone. Symbolized conscience, the spark of Divinity in man. Bezukhov is walking “on some kind of carpet.” This item also had a symbolic meaning in Freemasonry. “For greater clarity of the ritual, the chief spread a carpet on the floor in front of the newcomer, on which were depicted all the symbols that contained the hidden meaning of the degree.”

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Rite of Initiation Symbolic in Freemasonry are also the “sun, moon... plumb line... wild stone and cubic stone, pillar, three windows” mentioned below. The sun in Masonic symbolism meant truth, courage, justice, an active force in the world, an all-animating spirit, the Masonic order; the moon stood for pure love, matter, nature, as well as Christ and truth. Plumb meant equality; wild stone - rough morality, chaos; cubic - “processed” morality. A pillar in Masonic symbolism could mean wisdom, strength, beauty. The number three in Masonic symbolism means faith in Christ, hope for salvation, love for all humanity; improvement of the heart, mind, spirit; spirit, soul, body; Holy Trinity; three degrees of initiation in Johannine Freemasonry.

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Pierre's conversations with Prince Andrei in Bogucharovo Outside of Freemasonry, Bezukhov asserts, “everything is full of lies and untruths, but in the world, in the whole world there is a kingdom of truth, and we are now children of the earth, and forever - children of the whole world.”

A method of penetrating into the psychology of a character in a work of art is an internal monologue-reflection, internal (“to oneself”) speech, reasoning of the character. One thought causes another; each, in turn, generates a chain reaction of considerations, conclusions, and new questions. The “discoveries” that the heroes make are steps in the process of their spiritual development.

Upon admission to Freemasonry, guarantees are required from the new entrant. Anyone wishing to become a Freemason must obtain the recommendation of one of the members of the lodge into which he wishes to be admitted. Then, on the appointed day and hour, the guarantor, blindfolding the layman, leads him into the lodge premises for the rite of initiation into the first Masonic degree of the student.”

“A week later, Pierre, having said goodbye to his new friends, the Freemasons, and leaving them large sums of alms, left for his estate. His new friends gave him letters to Kyiv and Odessa, to the Freemasons there, and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activities” (chapter 5).

What specific steps did you take to confirm the moral calls of the Masons with practical deeds? Later, Pierre saw that under the pretty guise of the saints there was not at all what the brothers in the kamyishki were trying to demonstrate. Tolstoy writes: “From under the Masonic aprons and signs, he saw on them the uniforms and crosses that they sought in life.” Pierre saw that many representatives of high society, who had no less wealth than he, and who had taken the Masonic oath to give all their property for their neighbors, shied away from giving even a penny alms, and doubts began to creep into his soul.

Today in Europe, America, and Asia there are a large number of Masonic lodges. A significant part of them are united in an international organization. But there is no unity in the ranks of the Freemasons. The Masons themselves deny their connection with politics less and less, but, as before, they consider humanistic ideals and ensuring human rights to be the main ones. Several Masonic lodges operate legally in Russia. One of them, the “Grand Lodge of Russia,” has its own official website on the Internet. The Grand Master, a certain Gregory D., in his address to the readers of the site reports that his lodge avoids getting involved in politics. When asked whether among modern Masons there are famous people from the world of business and politics, he answers: “I believe that there may be.”

What will Freemasonry be like in the future? Will it be an influential force or will it attract people with its involvement in ancient secrets and mysterious rituals? The future will provide answers to these questions.