The Secret Temple

This is a unique history of Masonry written from the perspective of an educated outsider. The author is sympathetic to Masonic goals, a historian of secret societies and political conspiracies, and an exhaustive researcher. He looks back to the earliest roots of the Craft, and then traces its influence into modern times. From the Bible’s Temple of Solomon through the Knights Templars, to the Rosicrucians and Illuminati, we learn of Masonry’s roots and early history. Enlightenment philosophy and the revolutionary currents of eighteenth-century Europe opened an opportunity for the American experiment. Sacred geometry and architecture combined to create Washington, DC, and the rest, as they say, is history. This second revised and enlarged edition includes a new chapter on Freemasonry in South America—from the revolution of Simón Bolívar to the capture and execution of Che Guevara.

Peter Levenda is a well-known author of many published works on esoteric subjects. Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult was nominated for a Bram Stoker award for nonfiction in 1995. Ratline: Soviet Spies, Nazi Priests, and the Disappearance of Adolf Hitler and Hitler Legacy: The Nazi Cult in Diaspora—How It Was Organized, How It Was Funded, and Why It Remains a Threat to Global Security in the Age of Terrorism, all by Ibis Press, round out this important trilogy of Nazi history. Levenda is also the author Ibis Press titles Tantric Temples: Eros and Magic in Java, and The Dark Lord: H.P. Lovecraft, Kenneth Grant, and the Typhonian Tradition in Magic. He is also working with Blink 182 rock star Tom DeLonge on the Sekret Machines project.