Jack the Ripper really Masonic Ritual Murders!?

I am going to be reading Stephen Knight's "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution" which links the Jack the Ripper murders to Freemasonry. Now before everyone gets there undies in a frizzle I would like to say that I do not know if Freemasons are really BAD or GOOD. I don't really care because the truth is there are probably BOTH BAD and GOOD Freemasons. So if your a Freemason reading this please do not starting going into nuclear death fighter mode and start bashing me. With that being said I find the whole theory oif Jack the Ripper being a Freemason very interesting. In case you do not know about the Jack the Ripper-Mason theory you can either read "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution" or watch the Johnny Depp movie known as "From Hell". I also believe that there is a book called "From Hell" which you can read as well. I will also refresh you memory and/or clue you in on the theory right now so we may be able to discuss it.

The Royal Family's Prince Albert Victorl carried a dark secret (well... make that two since it is believed that he was a bisexual). He had an illegitmate child with a Roman Catholic girl and the royal family did not want new of it getting to the public. So it was a big problem when five women who knew about the Prince's little secret were threatening blackmail on the royal family. So Freemason Sir William Gull was sent out to kill the poor girls. Gull proceded in killing the girls according to Masonic rituals and the rest is well history as they would say.

Note that some people are wildly against this and claim that the man that told Stephen Knight the whole story about the murders even admitted to the whole Masonic theory as being fake. Is that just a cover-up? I do not know but I do know that Stephen Knight died mysteriously in 1984 after writing another book about Freemasonry.

If you are familiar with the theory, then perhaps you can present any of the evidence given to support any of it?

Whats a 'masonic murder ritual'? Why perform the murders in such a way? Why would some hookers know about the prince's secret, why would anyone beleive them if they did?

Originally posted by Born
So if your a Freemason reading this please do not starting going into nuclear death fighter mode and start bashing me.

Well this stood out to me, seems childish.

I could probably debunk it with my GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip.

I am merely open minded about the idea that the Jack the Ripper muders may have been performed by a Mason. I don't know if its true and either do any of you. I merely find the theory interesting. When Stephen Knight wrote his book he was going off of some grandson that suppossedly knew about the murders. This grandson later said it was all fake. But that still doesn't hide the fact that Stephen Knight died shortly after writing a book "exposing" Masons called "The Brotherhood: The Secret World of the Freemasons" in 1984. I do not know if the theory of Jack the Ripper is true and will admit that the whole idea seems more than a little bit wacky.

The Jack the Ripper masonic connection is almost certainly untrue. However rather than spoil the fun debunking it now if you want to post any 'evidence' backing up the hypothesis please do and we'l take it from there.

You are correct - there are GOOD freemasons and BAD freemasons. However as the organisation itself is all about doing GOOD I'll leave it up to you to decide in what proportion those two types exist within the fraternity.

Originally posted by Born
I am going to be reading Stephen Knight's "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution" which links the Jack the Ripper murders to Freemasonry.

There are many books on Jack the ripper I recommend this one ‘The Jack the Ripper A to Z’ (1994; Headline) by Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, from which I have drawn in compiling this post. It is a very readable book and it is covers all aspects of Jack the Ripper.

[… or watch the Johnny Depp movie known as "From Hell".

You may also like to watch ‘Murder by Decree’ (1979) staring Christopher Plumber and James Mason. It is also alleges a Masonic cover-up this time using the Sherlock Holmes theme.

I also believe that there is a book called "From Hell" which you can read as well.

Yes it is a graphic novel by Allan Moore and Eddie Campbell.

The Royal Family's Prince Albert Victorl caried a dark secret (well... make that two since it is believed that he was a bisexual). He had an illegitmate child with a Roman Catholic girl and the royal family did not want new of it getting to the public. So it was a big problem when five women who knew about the Prince's little secret were threatening blackmail on the royal family.

Is I recall Stephen Knight maintains that Prince Albert married a Roman Catholic woman and sired a child but according to the ‘Royal Marriages Act’ any such marriage would have to be approved of by the monarch. As the marriage was conducted without the Queen Victoria’s knowledge or consent the marriage, the marriage, if it occurred at all, would have been annulled and all children born within it declared illegitimate. As the child would then be unable to ascend to the throne, there would have been no constitutional crisis.

So it was a big problem when five women who knew about the Prince's little secret were threatening blackmail on the royal family.

Iit is hard to see how five prostitutes in the east end of London could have threatened the British government. Any such blackmail attempt would have fallen on deaf ears.

So Freemason Sir William Gull was sent out to kill the poor girls.

Yes the story was advanced first by Joseph Gorman Sickert in the mid seventies and elaborated on by Stephen Knight. J. G. Sickert claims to be the illegitimate grad son of the artist Walter Sickert. The story goes that Sir William Gull (Physician in Ordinary to Queen Victoria) was assisted by the Walter Sickert and caried out the murders in white chapel, at the behest of the then Home Secretary Lord Salisbury. Unfortunately Knight’s claim that Salisbury was a freemason has been proved to be untrue and William Gull had had a major stroke that prevented him from holding a scalpel. Knights other claims of Masonic affiliation, or lack of it, have also been shown to be wrong. Fore example, Police surgeon Dr G. B. Phillips is alleged to have been a freemason but he wasn’t and the coroner Wynne Baxter is alleged to not to have been a mason but in fact he was a prominent member of South Sussex Lodge.

Gull proceded in killing the girlsaccording to Masonic rituals…

Stephen Knight’s descriptions of the murders, which are used to justify the Masonic theory, have been criticised as being ‘sketchy’ and containing ‘important omissions’ consequently they can not be relied upon. Also the alleged Masonic nature of the mutilations are not adequately supported by evidence. They were supposed to reflect the ‘symbolic penalties’ that were contained in Masonic oaths. However I have been unable to find references to many details in Masonic ritual. Any how if freemasons were responsible for the murders why advertise the fact?

Note that some people are wildly against this and claim that the man that told Stephen Knight the whole story about the murders even admitted to the whole Masonic theory as being fake. Is that just a cover-up?

I think that it is more to do with the difficulty of the theory. Those parts of Joseph Sickert’s theory that can be checked have mostly been shown to be false and the remainder is purely speculative and so unverifiable. The story is more of an urban myth than a fraud.

I do not know but I do know that Stephen Knight died mysteriously in 1984 after writing another book about Freemasonry.

The book is called ‘The Brotherhood’ and is published by Harper Collins. Stephen Knight suffered a brain tumour and so died of natural causes. Diehard conspiracy theorists will say that Knight was murderedon the operating table by Masonic doctors. Really have they not heard of the Hippocratic Oath? Ofcourse there are exceptions that prove the rule but by and large doctors do not do that sort of thing!






[edit on 25-4-2005 by pignut]

Originally posted by Nygdan
If you are familiar with the theory, then perhaps you can present any of the evidence given to support any of it?

Whats a 'masonic murder ritual'?

There is no 'Masonic murder ritual' the murders are alleged to imitate the symbolic penalties mentioned in the rituals but it is far from certain that they do.

Why perform the murders in such a way?

Yes if true it does draw attention to the freemasons some what!

Why would some hookers know about the prince's secret, why would anyone beleive them if they did?

Annie Chapman was a prostitute and all of the victimes said to have frequented the same London pub. It is alleged that they knew each other and that they shared details if the royal indiscretion.


The fundamental weakness of the theory is that very largely it can not be verified. It is all verry silly and not worht all of this effort!



[edit on 25-4-2005 by pignut]

Originally posted by Born
I am merely open minded about the idea that the Jack the Ripper muders may have been performed by a Mason. I don't know if its true and either do any of you. I merely find the theory interesting. When Stephen Knight wrote his book he was going off of some grandson that suppossedly knew about the murders. This grandson later said it was all fake.

Wow. And you'd still support the theory to any degree? Its a cute idea, made a neat movie with bad guys in aprons, but still, the guy stated it was all fake, *shrug*, guess that makes it fake.

But that still doesn't hide the fact that Stephen Knight died shortly after writing a book "exposing" Masons

What, you suggest that masons murdered the guy for, doing what exactly, making another book about how "freemasonry is bad"? If they did that to every author, that'd be a big stack of bodies.

Also, this guys one book was shown to be bunk, and he was shown to be an incompetent, and apparently baised, researcher. He had a single source, who was lying, who couldn't have known anything anyway, and he 'ran' with it. The guy had no credibility, why would the masons even want to kill him?

And, they'd kill this uncredible and meaningless guy, but not everyone over at 'freemasonrywatch.com"?

pignut
. As the child would then be unable to ascend to the throne, there would have been no constitutional crisis.

Also, does not parliament itself have the ability to prevent any catholic from comming to the throne??

Among SERIOUS ripperologists, this theory isn't even considered. None of the supposed suspects in the case are Freemasons, and only ONE of the girls was killed in a way THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS a "masonic penalty" (alluding to the penalties put upon the ruffians who murdered Hiram Abiff) when they found her entrails thrown over her shoulder. Oh an I think one of the girls had her throat cut as well. But that's it.

Every other form of death was far more grotesque than any mason could conceive.

Not only that, but the theory ASSUMES that the man asked to carry out the murders was a Freemason, and that he was crazy enough to use masonic symbolism in the murders. I just don't see it.

[edit on 25-4-2005 by sebatwerk]

The connection (poorly attempted) between the "Jack the ripper" murders and Freemasonry is a bit of "old hat" around here, the ATS Search Function is your friend, feel free to impose upon it (as an aside, there is some truly hilarious posting associated with this subject, please read them).

For the misguided precept that a woman would be murdered in accordance with the Penalties of Freemasonry, I proffer this: Why would any non-Mason be killed in accordance with a penalty reserved for a Freemason (that would infer that the person, male or female would be elevated to the respective Degree)? This flawed logic (along with the Penalties of Freemasonry being Symbolic in nature, but that's another post). I submit the following: It would be more likely that a non-Mason would attempt to impose a method that they misunderstood, both in meaning and application; than a True Brother, who would be well versed in the spirit of the Obligation of the degrees of Freemasonry.

I think I’m going to start my own "Secret Society," I'll call it the "Mystic Order of ATS Search Society" (I think that can be shortened to MO-ASS)

ATS Search monkeys, not just for avoiding repeat threads anymore...

Originally posted by Mirthful Me
For the misguided precept that a woman would be murdered in accordance with the Penalties of Freemasonry, I proffer this: Why would any non-Mason be killed in accordance with a penalty reserved for a Freemason (that would infer that the person, male or female would be elevated to the respective Degree)? This flawed logic (along with the Penalties of Freemasonry being Symbolic in nature, but that's another post). I submit the following: It would be more likely that a non-Mason would attempt to impose a method that they misunderstood, both in meaning and application; than a True Brother, who would be well versed in the spirit of the Obligation of the degrees of Freemasonry.

Yeah, you're right. The excuse that the movie "From Hell" gives for this is that: as the ruffians were traitors to masonry for murdering the Grand Master, the prostitutes were traitors to the throne by being accomplices to the birth of a Catholic descendant to the throne. I think the movie is trying to make a parallel between the two, though it's obviously a flawed theory.

Originally posted by Nygdan

pignut
. As the child would then be unable to ascend to the throne, there would have been no constitutional crisis.

Also, does not parliament itself have the ability to prevent any catholic from comming to the throne??

Naturally, parliament is sovereign and so may enact whatever law it wishes. The Act of Succession of 1702 ensured a protestant succession by requiring that all monarchs will be members of the Church of England. This also creates potential problems for divorcees. From some perspectives the marriage between Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Charles is morganatic.

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

.... This flawed logic (along with the Penalties of Freemasonry being Symbolic in nature, but that's another post).

How are the penalties of Freemasonry not symbolic? I thought that they were intended to add force to the obligation to impress the seriousness of the undertaking on the candidate’s his mind. I thought that they dated back to the time when the inclusion of similar penalties in obligations were commonplace and were supposed to allude to the oath taker’s integrity rather than frighten him into keeping the oath. I assumed that the same applied in freemasonry.

There symbolic nature is underlined by the fact that they are no longer part of the obligations of craft freemasonry and most of the side degrees have dropped them too. The Sovereign Prince Rose Croix of H..d..m has never had them presumably this omision is also symbolic.







[edit on 25-4-2005 by pignut]

it was walter sickert, imho.


www.casebook.org...
patricai cornwalls book is very dark and crepy and convincing. The basic idea is a deformity on his genitals which lead to several bothched surgeries, left him with, shall we say, a problem with women.(remember, no ansethesia in those days !)

he tries to meet a few ladies of the evening, upon discovering the problem maybe some laughter or an insult leads to a violent killing, then sickert decides he likes it, and you know the story from there....


and isn;t the only masonic connection the writing on the wall near one of the victims ????

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
and isn;t the only masonic connection the writing on the wall near one of the victims ????

No, the only SUPPOSED connection in the writing was the spelling of the word "Jews" (Juwes), which SUPPOSEDLY was an indication of the brother masons who killed the Grand Master Hiram Abiff, their names being Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum. This is only an assumption, and cannot be confirmed.

For Masonic ties to ritual murders see the French horror "Anatomie".

It's good fiction and a suspenseful story, just like the Masonic solution to the unsolved components of the JTR murders.

Originally posted by sebatwerk

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
and isn;t the only masonic connection the writing on the wall near one of the victims ????

No, the only SUPPOSED connection in the writing was the spelling of the word "Jews" (Juwes), which SUPPOSEDLY was an indication of the brother masons who killed the Grand Master Hiram Abiff, their names being Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum. This is only an assumption, and cannot be confirmed.

The names Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum were removed fom the ritual in the English constitution early in the ninteinth century so the victorian fremasons are unlikly to have known them. The mythical murderers are just refered to as the 'three ruffians'. The word 'Juwes' was most likley writen by an iliterate anti semite since no referense to the term can be found in masonic litriture.

Originally posted by pignut

The names Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum were removed fom the ritual in the English constitution early in the ninteinth century so the victorian fremasons are unlikly to have known them. The mythical murderers are just refered to as the 'three ruffians'. The word 'Juwes' was most likley writen by an iliterate anti semite since no referense to the term can be found in masonic litriture.

"...most likley writen by an iliterate ...referense to the term can be found in masonic litriture."

Priceless.

I have yet to encounter a Grand Lodge that has reduced the three errant Fellowcraft to exclusive "Ruffian" status, the nature of the names having some future significance (but I do believe it possible for the Second Section somewhere being so modified). I do find it difficult to believe that a true Freemason would be unfamiliar with those three names (which incidentally, are out of order, and yes, it does matter), for they are a significant part of each Master Mason's brief moment as Hiram.

Third Base Monkeys, not just for hitting home runs anymore...

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

Originally posted by pignut

The names Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum were removed fom the ritual

I have yet to encounter a Grand Lodge that has reduced the three errant Fellowcraft to exclusive "Ruffian" status

Most assuredly the names are not present in the third degree in many constitutions, and accosting at various points is done by ordinally numbered ruffians. But they may appear in the York Rite, if this is what you are referring to as future significance (?).

Ah, I remember well the blooper of endeavoring to retreat to the "west gate" ... "and on to the north gate".

[edit on 25-4-2005 by MaskedAvatar]

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

Originally posted by pignut


"...most likley writen by an iliterate ...referense to the term can be found in masonic litriture."

Priceless.

Sorry I am dyslexic, I usually run posts through a word processor first to check the spelling.

I have yet to encounter a Grand Lodge that has reduced the three errant Fellowcraft to exclusive "Ruffian" status....

The UGLE is one Grand Lodge that omits the names but i think that they are still found in Scottish rituals

the nature of the names having some future significance ....

I assume that you are referring to the A. A. A. (S.) R. if so these degrees are not worked in the UK. All degrees from the fourth to the sixteenth of the Rose Croix are conferred by name only prior to the candidates admission to the eighteenth degree.

I do find it difficult to believe that a true Freemason would be unfamiliar with those three names

It isn't imposable seeing the wide diversity in Masonic rituals. What may be considered essential in one constitution, province or lodge may be unknown in another. The 'Candidates Chain' is unknown in the UK but is preserved in the Bristol Working. The 'Passing the Veils' is worked in the York Rite and in Scotland but in the UK it is only worked in in Bristol. It is very probable that UK masons have never heard of these traditions unless they have attended a Bristol Lodge or Chapter visited a lodge under another constitution.



[edit on 25-4-2005 by pignut]