Hiram had a counterfiet religion. Hiram was in charge of the masons. The figures of Solomon and Hiram are central to the teachings of Freemasonry even today.4 The Temple of Solomon is a central object in Masonic doctrine.5 They refer to their god as ``GAOTI''--the Grand Architect Of The Universe,6 in direct parallel to Hiram, the architect of the Temple. The Masonic Order was originally an order of the Roman Catholic Church, known as the Knights Templar, or The Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem.7They were formed during the Crusades to protect the Temple from the Islamic invaders.8 Today a Muslim mosque stands on the original temple site. The Knights Templar were officially excomunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by papal order after they became too powerful in international trade, commerce, and banking, thereby competing with the Roman Catholic Church itself for being the dominant world power.9
Part of the third degree initiation to Masonry, which makes one a Master Mason, goes as follows: the candidate is bound in a ``cable-tow'', which is a cord or rope that passes around his arms between the shoulder and the elbow, and has a free end by which he is led; he is blindfolded by having his hood pulled down over his eyes--``hoodwinked;'' he wears one shoe and one slipper, and has a bandage tied around the calf of the leg with the slipper--he is crippled. That this initiation is much older than the date Masonry was made know to the public in 1717 is attested to by a painting, The Wayfarer, by Hieronymus Bosch.10 Bosch died in 1516, over 200 years before 1717. This painting depicts all of these Masonic rituals, along with a journey of the man from filth and corruption to peace and tranquility, the latter symbolized by a milk cow.
It is the opinion of the present author that the painter's name is an obvious psuedonym: Hieronymus would translate roughly as ``the name of Hiram.'' Bosch means ``bush'', which could be interpreted as a contraction of ``bushel'', as in:
Lu 11:33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth [it] in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.
The allusion would be that the light is indeed to be hidden, so that the true Gospel should not be seen by men.
The allusion to the cow is practically Hindu in its appearance. One must consider that Hinduism is very similar to the Baal worship of the Old Testament, and that Hinduism was carried into India by invaders from Persia, who themselves had had close contact with both Baal worship and Judaism.11That this indication of Hindu beliefs would be mixed into a painting from before 1516 is a strong indication that Hindu practices were known to Masons even before India was well known to European civilization--an indication that Masonry was tainted by Ball worship.
The use of the cable-tow in the Masonic initiation is symbolic of the fact that a Mason is bound--he is not free. The hoodwinking symbolizes that he is blind--he cannot see. The injured leg and dissimilar footwear cause him to walk with a limp--he is injured, hurt, and cannot walk right.
The foundations of Masonry are rooted in a mystical belief system known as Qaballah, or Cabalism. The first spelling emphasizes the Arabic heritage. The last spelling shows the reference to the cable of the cable-tow. The Mason is being bound by his initiation to the heresy of Cabalism, or Qaballism, also known as Qaballah. Robinson speculates that the secrecy of Masonry arose out of the need to protect itself from the Inquisition of a jealous Roman Catholic Church.12