If you wonder what I have been doing ignoring the blog, it is quite simple: I got the complete works of Sherlock Holmes as a gift and as the language was neither Finnish or English it took some time to read all nine books. I did not think anybody is reading this blog, so it could not make any difference if there are new posts or not. But I try to write some posts this month.
Now as I have all Sherlock stories in fresh memory, I can solve a small problem. Not a Sherlock Holmes type problem, but the problem of what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew of the only important conspiracy, which often is called the Masonic conspiracy and also the Communist conspiracy, and where one often adds the adjective “Judeo”, and which is told to be a myth but does not appear to be so, and which today is neither Masonic nor Communistic but still exists.
Unfortunately, just based on this 2000 pages of Sherlock Holmes, I cannot say what Doyle knew about the conspiracy, only what is in these stories. Doyle also created the character Professor George Challenger, so he was aware that there is some problem in science: some true theories do not get published, but I will not go to that complicated issue. Additionally Doyle was interested in the existence of soul, which is another downplayed topic, but I will skip that as well.
Sherlock Holmes stories have this excellent feature that they are fiction and therefore show only what they show. As Doyle mentions Freemasons several times in The Valley of Fear (1914/1915) in a story of a criminal secret society (Molly Maguires, as the Wikipedia informs) it tells us that at that time the Masonic conspiracy was well known and not considered any myth.
For some reason Doyle wanted to present Molly Maguires as Masonic to the readers. That is odd as he must have known the real events: Allan Pinkerton published in 1905 a detective story of how a Pinkerton agent James McParland had infiltrated Molly Maguires. Pinkerton’s influence in Doyle is clear: in the story in The Adventures of the Retired Colourman there is a competitor of Sherlock Holes, Mr. Barker, a detective with sunglasses and a Masonic tiepin. Why the Masonic tiepin? Obviously because Barker is a Pinkerton man and the pin is not Masonic: it is the Pinkerton logo, an all-seeing eye (the private eye).
I found this Doyle’s Masonic confusion/error interesting. I doubt it is an error. When doing my small study on conspiracy theories (whence from the name of this blog pienisalaliittotutkimus=a small study on conspiracy), I noticed that before the world wars most people in Europe were quite well informed of the great conspiracy. They did not think it was any myth. After the Second World War all this knowledge was suppressed. When I grew up the Masonic conspiracy was said to be false: just like the hero of The Valley of Fear had learned, Freemasonry was just a charitable organization. My small study did confirm that Mizraim and Memphis Freemasonry (active mainly in the Catholic countries, but Freemasonry was Anti-Catholic) and some Masonry-related societies (Carbonaries, and certain Rosicrucian secret societies) did all those things that Masons were accused of, including revolutions and sex magic. No myth, a fact.
But what did Doyle mean by calling Molly Maguires Masonic? It was not Masonic: the mother society was the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH). Yet tracking the history of Irish secret societies gives Defenders->Ribbonmen->AOH. Defenders were a Catholic secret society that was greatly influenced by Freemasonry, as were their opponents, the Protestant secret society Orange Order. In 1916 AOH members joined IRA (Irish Republican Army) and Sinn Féin, which confirms a connection to terrorism and subversive movements.
I have noticed that European secret societies typically derive from Freemasons, were founded by Freemasons, or were modeled after Freemasons, like the (Irish) Defenders. This is natural as Freemasonry has a fairly complete set of practices that any subversive secret society would find useful. Masonry includes an oath of silence, a hierarchical structure with orders from a superior, secret ways to recognize members, support for members and in some cases for their families, a practice of infiltration and reporting, and a division to regular and irregular lodges with a strict command for regular lodge members not to go to the meetings of irregular lodges even though on the higher level the irregular lodges are joined to the same structure (think about this carefully, it enables subversive lodges). Masons even used a cipher to hide their messages, though this cipher is no longer secure. These practices suit well to spying, revolutionary, terrorist or criminal purposes. Inversely one may ask what other organizations than those working for subversive or criminal purposes could benefit from this odd set of practices. A social club of men does not need them.
Naturally, Freemasons are not doing any subversive or criminal activities. It is a charity organization with some old rites deriving from medieval mason guilds. Or that is the way it seems to most Freemasons, that is, the non-secret secret societies. But up to the Paris Commune (1871) and even later there were the other Masons doing subversive activities, the secret secret societies. Doyle may have intended one of his rare references to Freemasons in Sherlock Holmes stories as a pun on this issue: there is a naive Freemason in the story The Red-Headed League. He does not understand that he is being used by criminals in order to infiltrating into a firm.
Thus, one reason why Doyle called Molly Maguires Masonic may be that all of these secret societies were influenced by Masonry. Doyle was well aware of Masonic leftist revolutionary activities: in The Adventures of the Red Circle the criminal is a Carbonary using mafia methods. This is not at all incorrect: the Italian Carbonari and Mafia had close connections, and as Memphis and Mizraim Freemasonry was very close to Carbonaries, there always was a connection. It helped Americans invading Italy from Sicily in the world wars and it also led to the P2 lodge in Italy in 1980ies.
But is this is the correct explanation?
There is another possibility: that Doyle actually means that Masons had infiltrated Molly Maguires. Is there any clear statement in The Valley of Fear that says that Molly Maguires was Masonic rather than infiltrated by Masons? I checked all references to Masons. All but one of them can be explained that Doyle does not actually say (though on purpose leads the reader to think) that the secret society was Masonic. All of these can be explained that the infiltrator was a Mason and there were some other Masonic infiltrators in the secret society. The real life infiltrator to Molly Maguires was a Pinkerton agent James McParland. He probably was not a Mason, but Pinkerton worked for the railroad owners (when catching Jesse James gang and the Wild Bunch) and to mine owners (in the Molly Maguires case). Thus, Pinketon worked for the establishment and that was largely Masonic at the time in the USA. Indeed, the Pinkerton Detective Agency was created in a Masonic hall.
The one reference to Masons in The Valley of Fear that did not immediately fit into this alternative explanation was a text mentioning the main Molly Maguires leaders and continuing it “and other Masonic leaders”. I think artistic freedom in fiction allows dropping commas, so this could be read as “and other, Masonic, leaders”, which does not suggest that the main Molly Maguires leaders were Masons but that the secret society was infiltrated by Masons.
Both explanations are possible.
Of course there has to be a logical explanation. Doyle when writing Sherlock Holmes would not have made simple errors. He is even so precise that when in The Lion’s Mane story a sting of a lion’s mane medusa kills a person it turns out that the person had a weak heart as the sting could not kill a healthy person. All apparent errors are intended and Doyle for sure knew that Molly Maguires was not Masonic. In the beginning of The Valley of Fear Sherlock decrypts a message. It may well mean that the story needs to be decrypted. You are expected to solve this troublesome detail.
I find it very possible that Doyle meant that Molly Maguires worked as he describes, but was not originally Masonic, and that Masons infiltrated other secret societies. Freemasons of the P2 lodge infiltrated Italian Red Brigades in 1980s with the purpose of turning them to terrorist actions in order to destroy the positive image Communists had among some of the population. A similar claim has been made about Molly Maguires: the Pinkerton infiltrator may be largely responsible for changing the leftist secret society into a murderous criminal gang, again for the purpose of destroying it. Allan Pinkerton was a former MI5 agent and must have known usages of infiltration. Intelligence agencies typically infiltrate enemy organizations.
The Valley of Fear has also the outside story where Sherlock Holmes tells something about ex-Professor Moriarty. Moriarty had an organization that could decide the fate of nations. That is more than a criminal organization can do, thus even if originally Moriarty was modeled after some organized crime figure, like Adam Worth or Jonathan Wild, in The Valley of Fear he represents a world wide conspiracy like what revolutionary Freemasonry still was in 1870s. Indeed, if Molly Maguires is presented as Masonic and they have relations with Moriarty’s organization, then Moriarty is connected with subversive Freemasons.
In the real history Mazzini’s Young Europe had close connections with Freemasons. There were many such organizations in different countries. Some, like the Young Finns, did not have Freemason leaders (since Freemasonry was at that time illegal in Russia), some were clearly Masonic, like the Young Turks, which also had Sabbatean (cabbalistic and expelled Jewish sect) connections. In the USA the corresponding movement was the Young America. In 1850s it was led by Freemasons, two of them being later USA presidents (Franklin Pierce, unconfirmed Mason, and James K. Polk, confirmed Mason), one a senator (Stephen A. Douglas, Mason), and additionally there was a Jewish banker from Rothschild’s house (August Belmont). These people were clearly no revolutionaries: two pillars of democracy and one international banker, yet the Young Europe movement had close connections with leftist revolutionaries, like Carbonaries.
This was the dual nature of Freemasonry: there were like two types of Masons, one type were the leftist revolutionaries. Doyle knew this connection: in The Adventures of the Red Circle a Carbonari revolutionary has established some Carbonari secret societies in the USA and Molly Maguires, a leftist Irish secret society, is given as an example: Masonic, leftist, revolutionary, and criminal, and at the same time Pinkerton is also Masonic.
Many people find it contradictory that Freemasons and international bankers would have had connections to leftist revolutionaries, but it is historically true. It is not so strange, at least for bankers. It is possible for investors to make good profits on any catastrophes, especially if they can foresee the catastrophe, which is the case if investors finance wars and revolutions. Catastrophes cause shortages and in open market shortages increase prices. In the time of war there often are shortages of many things. If the country does not impose rations, prices increase to the point where high prices suppress demand or enable compensating production. If a country imposes rations it leads to a black market. In international markets it usually is not possible to enforce rations and therefore shortages increase prices to the level where demand decreases or new production comes economically viable. This price level is much higher than the economic price level for existing production, which means that old producers can make huge profits. An international investor is in the best position to benefit from these shortages in the long run, as different products will have shortages in different catastrophes. An investor, if he knows when the catastrophe starts and ends, is able to buy shares of industry, which will experience a boom. There are other ways bankers can benefit from wars and catastrophes, like giving loans. Catastrophes are real business if they are correctly used.
Doyle does not write in Sherlock Holmes stories what happened later to this New World Order conspiracy. It is quite well known from other sources: Freemasons were replaced by Communists as revolutionaries. You may naturally wonder what international bankers might have done: did they discard the very profitable chance on gaining on catastrophes, or did they shift to financing Communists? There was a counteraction against communism (like Nazis), also fomenting catastrophes. Could bankers possibly benefit from them? The fact is that investors can benefit from any change, provided that they take correct actions. It seems that a small group of international bankers did finance early Communistic revolutionaries. As one ethnic group was over-represented among these early Communists, and the group of bankers also had a certain composition, an ethnic adjective was added to the New World Order conspiracy, though it was not a conspiracy by any ethnic group. An ethnic association is to some extent justified of the Communistic stage (not of the Masonic stage) by member statistics. What is the stage after Communism fell can be deduced and I do not need to deduce it. In any case, these are no myths. The great conspiracy was true and though suppressed, the facts can be found even today with some own work.