back to
Frankenstein U.There is in Frankenstein yet another possible reference to
mystery and monstrosity that comes with the Orkney
creation and destruction of the female creature.
Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has generated interest
in the disputed history of the Priory of Sion, in which
a lord of the Orkneys figures as the linchpin. In the
years that led up to Mary's writing of the novel, it seems
entirely reasonable that Thomas Paine's criticism of the
Christian myth had awakened interest in such alternative
versions of history as to be found in the Plantard-St. Clair
tradition. When the various threads suggested by parallels
in the Frankenstein story and the story of the Priory of
Sion are explored, robust readers have much to discuss
and ponder.
The serious discrepancies in Victor's account may have been
intended as clues for those whose interests might lead to an
investigation of the history of Christianity and the ways in
which views of the feminine and masculine have figured in
society as a result of church doctrine and authority. We
note that Mary Shelley's interest in her mother's views, which
included a more positive take on the feminine with respect to
scripture, may be seen as possibly having taken the young
author in a direction that, if undisguised, could have brought
far more hostility from establishment than in fact resulted.
This thread is similar to one found in Wolfsehr's
To a Candid World, which identifies a secret society that also
has as its purpose the preservation of a version of history
disapproved of by the church. In both the Priory of Sion
and the Eyes of Christ society, a critical and unacceptable
divergence from the church orthodoxy is the belief that Jesus
was human and not the god-man of the triune god. The
two societies differ, however, in that the latter finds the
scriptures themselves to support its belief, while the former
depends upon documents suppressed by the church of
the Christian Roman Empire. There is also the significant
theological difference, the Priory of Sion coming with a
gnostic tilt, if not outright doctrine, where on the other
hand, the Eyes of Christ society is much more in keeping
with the belief in the perfectibility of humankind reflected
in such declarations as 'mankind is the shekina'.The story Victor tells can be seen as recapitulating either
the Priory of Sion or the Eyes of Christ account, though
the former, with its emphasis on the suppression of the
role of the feminine in Christianity, seems to resonate more
in the destruction of the female creature scene.The versions of history represented by the two secret
societies, either of which may have its own invented history,
intersect at interesting points, the crusades, with its suppression
of the Cathars, to mention one.Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code suggests (some license is
taken to effect this) that a predetermined point in time has
arrived, at which the secret so long preserved is to be made
public. The Vitebsk tradition, which is connected to the
Eyes of Christ account, includes a reading of Frankenstein
that points to a similar predetermined point of revelation.
The fifty year difference appears to have arisen from Brown's
need to place the point of revelation in the present, to make
the question a contemporary one.
Here are some links to sites devoted to the mystery and controversy
of the Priory of Sion.Freemasonry, the Sinclair Family, and Rosslyn Chapel
The Vault Material: Priory of Sion and Rosslyn?
Freemasonry, the Sinclair Family, and Rosslyn Chapel
The Rosslyn Myth: Did Christ Have Children (Did He Exist?)
Jean Cocteau 1918-1963
Claude Debussy 1885-1918
Victor Hugo 1801-1844
Charles Nodier 1844-1885
Maximillian DeLorraine 1801-1780
Charles DeLorraine 1746-1801
Charles Radclyffe 1727-1746
Isaac Newton 1691-1727
Robert Boyle 1654-1691
J. Valentine Andrea 1637-1654
Robert Fludd 1595-1637
Louis De Nevers 1575-1595
Ferdinand De Gonzaque 1527-1575
Connetable De Bourbon 1519-1527
Leonardo Da Vinci 1510-1519
Sandro Botticelli 1483-1510
Iolande De Bar 1480-1483
Rene Di Anjou 1418-1480
Nicholas Flamel 13-981418
Blance D'Evreau 1366-1398
Jean Saint Clair 1351-1366
Jeanne De Bar 1336-1351
Edouard De Bar 1307-1336
Guillaume De Gisors 1266-1307
Marie De Saint Claire 1220-1266
Jean De Gisors 1188-1220
frank free, paid
stein stone, rock, old as the hills
free mason suggested by the name Frankenstein
as Illuminati and Enlightenment
Note HCR visited with founder in 1816 St Clair page 437walton walten ( to govern, to rule or preside over)
to temper justice with mercy bei aller
Gerechtigkeit Milde walten lassenbooks making popular the idea that Freemasonry was involved in a
conspiracy leading to French Revolution etc.Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of
Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati,
and Reading Societies. Collected from Good Authorities by John Robison,
1797.
Godwin read the book in 1798Memoirs,Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, Abbe Barruel, 1797.
Godwin read the book in 1798
Seymour says the book was one of Shelley's favorite bookssee also
Application of Barruel's memoirs of Jacobinism to the Secret Societies
of Ireland and Great Britain, 1798
17 For excerpts from Crabb Robinson's diary, see Nineteenth-century Accounts of William Blake, ed. J.A. Wittreich
(Gainesville: Scholar's Facsimiles and Reprints, l970), 65, 89, 296.18 Arthur E. Waite, A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (London: William Ryder, l921), 194. The collaboration of
Zinzendorf and the German and Swedish Moravians with Jacobite Freemasons made them targets of surveillance by the British
government in London and Hanover. For a lurid but inadequately documented account of Zinzendorf's sexual-Masonic rituals,
see Tim O'Neill, "The Erotic Freemasonry of Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf," in Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and
Hidden History, ed. Jim Keith (Feral House, l993), 103-08. I am grateful to Ron Heisler for sending me this article.
*********
107 John Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret
Meetings of the Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, 4th rev. ed. (London: Caldwell and Davis, l798), 470. In
this edition, Robison added a detailed exposé of the Swedenborgian Masons who allegedly contributed to the assassination of
Gustav III. See my "Blake and the Grand Masters: Architects of Repression or Revolution?," in Blake in the Nineties, eds.
Steve Clark and David Worrall (London: Macmillan, 1999), 187-89, 192-93.
Donation of Constantine - - - -
was not questioned. However, in 1440 Lorenzo Valla published
his Declamitio de falso credita et ementia donatione Constantini
(Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of
Constantine). In this declamation, Valla argued that the donation
was a fraud. He noted that not only was there no record indicating
that Pope Sylvester I had been aware of such a gift, but also that
the text of the Donation contained a number of historical
anachronisms. For instance, it referred to Byzantia as a province
when in the fourth century it was only a city. It referred to temples
in Rome that did not yet exist; and finally, it referred to 'Judea'
which also did not yet exist.