| Episode number | MB37 (Part 37 of 42) |
|---|---|
| Original air date | February 22, 1994 (second hour, same night as MB36) |
| Broadcast | Hour of the Time, WWCR shortwave |
| Chapter title | Rose Cross College, Part II |
| Primary texts read on air | A Rose Cross College, ed. R. Swinburne Clymer (1917); R. Swinburne Clymer, The Teachings of the Masters, the Wisdom of the Ages (1952 revised edition) |
| Listen | Stream the series on archive.org |
Episode Summary
Episode 37 aired as the second hour of a double broadcast on February 22, 1994, picking up directly from where episode 36 left off. Cooper opens with a brief discussion of a listener’s letter documenting that Senator Arlen Specter’s office told the listener that Public Law 87-297 was out of print and unavailable, which Cooper presents as evidence that public officials are concealing the text of existing law from citizens. He reminds listeners to order tapes of episode 36 before moving back into the Clymer material.
The first section of the episode continues from A Rose Cross College with the story of Merlin. Cooper reads an extended retelling of the Arthurian legend in which Merlin, described in the text as the son of an incubus rather than a mortal father, becomes the chief adviser to the kings of Britain, helps defeat the usurper Vortigern, and is eventually imprisoned by his mistress Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, through the use of an enchantment Merlin himself had taught her. Cooper then offers his interpretation: that the Holy Grail in the Arthurian tradition stands for the soul, and that the quest for the Grail is the Mystery Religion’s allegorical account of the initiate’s search for spiritual illumination through the grade structure of the fraternities.
Cooper reads a passage from the Clymer text in which the author asks whether Masonry is capable of completing the Great Work, suggesting that at its present stage Masonry is purely materialistic and has not yet fulfilled its symbolic purpose. Cooper comments that this is a frank admission that the Masonic order, as it exists publicly, is a shell from which the deeper philosophy has been separated. He reads a passage asserting that the Fire Philosophy is the basis of all religious mysteries and all secret occult brotherhoods, and that the aim of all true initiation, whatever the name of the fraternity, is to know the nature of the Secret Fire that regenerates the world.
Cooper pauses to identify Bo Gritz as a 32nd-degree Freemason of the Scottish Rite and a member of the Mormon Church. He claims that the Mormon temple ceremony reveals to initiates that Lucifer, not Christ, is the god of the initiatory system, that Christ failed in his earthly mission, and that the present age belongs to Lucifer. He directs listeners to the book and video The Godmakers as supporting documentation.
The second half of the episode introduces a new source: Clymer’s later and more expansive work, The Teachings of the Masters, the Wisdom of the Ages, in its 1952 revised edition. Cooper reads extensively from this text. Clymer’s title page identifies him as Director General of the Church of Illumination, Supreme Grand Master of the International Confederation of Initiates, and Supreme Grand Master of a list of merged occult fraternities that includes the Rosicrucian Order, the Hermetic Brotherhood, the Order of the Magi, the Sons of Isis and Osiris, and what Clymer calls Illuminatae Americanae, which Cooper translates as the American Illuminati.
The 1952 text describes a crisis prophecy delivered at the June 1916 convocation: that America was about to be drawn into a war that would be the beginning of greater wars, that an effort would be made to destroy the Christian religion so secretly that only the alert would perceive it, and that the country stood at a crossroads between freedom and the most abject serfdom. Cooper reads these passages as confirmation of his own thesis, noting that the prediction as stated was made in 1916 but that Clymer was writing from the vantage point of 1952 when the revised edition was produced.
The episode concludes with an extended reading about the Great Seal of the United States. Clymer’s text argues that the Founding Fathers, who are identified in the text as members of the Mystery Religion, designed the seal as an esoteric document encoding the destiny of the American nation according to the ancient prophecies. The passage identifies Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, the committee appointed on July 14, 1776 to design the seal, as all being members of the mystery religion. Clymer identifies the eagle as a symbol of the eagleland, by which he means Egypt, and the reverse of the seal, showing the unfinished pyramid with the all-seeing eye, as a prophetic statement that will only be fulfilled when America accepts its destiny as a vehicle for the spiritual evolution of the master race. Cooper’s response is brief and dismissive: he reads the final passage on the mottoes of the seal, Annuit Coeptis and Novus Ordo Seclorum, and ends the broadcast abruptly.
Key Claims Made in This Episode
Documented from the broadcast. The site records these claims; it does not endorse them. Dated claims also appear in the series timeline.
- Cooper claims that R. Swinburne Clymer’s 1952 edition of The Teachings of the Masters identifies him as Supreme Grand Master of a merged confederation that included the O.T.O., the Golden Dawn, Freemasonry, the Knights of Malta, and the Knights Templar, as well as the Rosicrucian Order and the Sons of Isis and Osiris.
- Cooper claims that at the June 1916 Rose Cross convocation, the assembled members received a prophecy that America would be drawn into a war that would be only the beginning of greater wars, and that an effort would be made to destroy Christianity so secretly that only the alert would notice.
- Cooper claims that the committee appointed on July 14, 1776 by the Continental Congress to design the Great Seal of the United States, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, were all members of the Mystery Religion.
- Cooper claims that the Fire Philosophy, as described in Clymer’s writings, is the underlying principle of all secret occult brotherhoods, including Freemasonry, and that the aim of all true initiation is to attain knowledge of a Secret Fire that grants immortality.
- Cooper claims that Bo Gritz is a 32nd-degree Freemason of the Scottish Rite and a Mormon who has been initiated in the temple ceremony, in which it is revealed that Lucifer is the god of the initiatory system and that Christ failed in his earthly mission.
- Cooper claims that the three degrees and six scenes of the Osiris initiation rites represent the number 18, which is 6-6-6, the number of the man referred to in Revelation, which in his interpretation designates the illumined man who has passed the Osirian degrees.
- Cooper claims that the motto Novus Ordo Seclorum on the reverse of the Great Seal, translated by Clymer as a New World Order, was placed there deliberately by initiates to encode the political goal of world government in the founding symbol of the United States.
- Cooper claims that the Holy Grail in the Arthurian tradition is an allegory for the soul, and that the Knights of the Holy Grail as described in Clymer’s texts are a branch of the same Illuminati network that Cooper traces through the Rosicrucians and other organisations.
- Cooper claims that Merlin’s imprisonment by Viviane in the Arthurian legend, in which Merlin is trapped through an enchantment he himself taught his captor, symbolises the way the Mystery Religion entraps its own initiates through the very knowledge it imparts to them.
Primary Sources Cited in This Episode
| Source | Status | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| R. Swinburne Clymer, ed., A Rose Cross College (Beverly Hall, 1917) — Merlin section | Public domain (1917) | Search archive.org |
| R. Swinburne Clymer, The Teachings of the Masters, the Wisdom of the Ages (rev. ed., Beverly Hall, 1952) | Not public domain (1952 copyright); read at length on air, treated here under quotation only | Library copies; see sources hub |
| Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, The Godmakers (1984) | Not public domain; cited as supporting source for Mormon temple ceremony claims | Library copies |
Notable Quotes
The aim of all true initiation, no matter what the name of the Fraternity may be, is to know the nature of the Secret Fire that regenerates the world and which renders him who comes into its possession immortal.
Cooper, MB37, February 22, 1994, reading from Clymer, The Teachings of the Masters (1952)
Be thou a man and thou mayst be a god.
Cooper, MB37, February 22, 1994, reading a section heading from Clymer, The Teachings of the Masters (1952), identified as the divine command of the New Age
Historians’ View
The claim that Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson were members of a unified Mystery Religion is a long-standing assertion in conspiracy-oriented literature but is not supported by mainstream historical scholarship. Franklin was a Freemason; Adams was not, and in fact publicly criticised Masonry; Jefferson had no recorded lodge membership. Clymer’s claim that the founders consciously encoded esoteric Rosicrucian doctrine in the seal’s design is his own interpretive framework, not a position found in academic histories of the founding era or of the seal’s design process. The Great Seal was designed through a more prosaic committee process documented in the Congressional record. The identification of the motto Novus Ordo Seclorum as meaning a New World Order is a translation error; the phrase, taken from Virgil’s Eclogues, means a new order of the ages, referring to the beginning of a new era of history, not to a world government. Cooper’s attribution of Mormon temple rites to Luciferian content is drawn from anti-Mormon evangelical literature of the 1980s, specifically from Ed Decker’s work, which mainstream religious scholars and Latter-day Saint scholars dispute. We record all claims as broadcast; we do not endorse them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mystery Babylon episode 37 about?
Episode 37 continues Cooper’s reading of Rosicrucian texts, focusing on the Arthurian legend of Merlin as an esoteric allegory and then shifting to Clymer’s 1952 book on the Fire Philosophy and the Great Seal of the United States. Cooper argues that the founders were initiates of the Mystery Religion and that the reverse side of the seal encodes the agenda of world government. See the Rosicrucians and Rose Cross hub for all feeding episodes.
Does Novus Ordo Seclorum mean New World Order?
Cooper reads Clymer’s text which translates it that way. Historians of Latin and of American history translate the phrase, taken from Virgil, as a new order of the ages, referring to the founders’ sense that they were beginning a new chapter of human history, not establishing a world government. Cooper does not dispute Clymer’s translation on air; he accepts it as confirmation of his thesis.
What were the Mormon claims Cooper made?
Cooper claimed that the Mormon temple initiation ceremony reveals Lucifer as the true god of the system and that Christ failed in his earthly mission. He cited Ed Decker’s The Godmakers (1984) as the source. Latter-day Saint scholars and mainstream religious scholars contest this characterisation of the endowment ceremony. Cooper had addressed Mormon doctrine in an earlier episode as well; see MB29: The Godmakers.
Where can I listen to episode 37?
The series is preserved at archive.org. The site never hosts or distributes the audio; see our content policy.
Continue the Series
- Previous: MB36: Rose Cross Part 1
- Next: MB38: Rose Cross Part 3
- Topic hub: Rosicrucians and Rose Cross
- Related hub: Mystery Schools and Ancient Religion
- Related hub: Secret Societies
- Related hub: Freemasonry
- Every dated claim from this episode: series timeline
- Sources and public-domain texts: Mystery Babylon sources hub
- Full index: Mystery Babylon complete episode guide
- Background: Who was William Cooper?
