Medieval Scottish Masons’ Multi-Dimensional Secrets

Internationally best-selling author Dan Brown's 2009 fictional novel, The Lost Symbol, drew heavily on the mystique, secrets and perceived conspiratorial nature of Freemasons, the world's oldest and largest fraternity whose members have included notable historical figures such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Harry Houdini.

George Washington, full-length portrait standing, facing slightly right, in masonic attire, holding scroll and trowel. Strobridge & Gerlach lithographers, Pike's Opera House, Cincinnati, (1866)(Public Domain).

Having a secretive modus operandi, Freemasons have long been the target of conspiracy theorists who believe they control events on a community level and affect politics and economic on a global scale. The earliest document in which Freemasonry was associated with a global conspiracy was published in 1786, Enthüllungen des Systems der Weltbürger-Politik (Disclosure of the System of Cosmopolitan Politics), in which Freemasons, Illuminati and Jesuits were said to have plotted a global revolution which many today think of as the New World Order.