Questioning the Narrative

Born into a conservative Christian family during the height of Apartheid South Africa in 1976, my life path was predetermined. Attend university, qualify with a specialist degree, play professional sport, marry with children and live unhappily ever after. Exposed from an early age to the incongruence and outright hypocrisy of Church attendance on a Sunday, followed by a week of fascist behaviour toward others justified in the Name of God, the polar opposite of the teachings of Jesus (love one another), created a deep distrust of organized religion.

This incongruence, coupled with fierce resistance to the concept of Original Sin and the belief in saving indigenous and African cultures by converting them, fuelled a burning desire to expand beyond the confines of my conditioning. No separation existed between Church and State during the rule of the National Party between 1948 and 1994. Dominion Theology based on the Old Testament was the law of the land. I was taught that man was created in the image of God, only to discover that God was crafted in the image of a white man.

Enormous societal changes in 1994, with Nelson Mandela becoming the first democratically elected president, presented an opportunity to walk an alternative path if I had enough courage to follow my heart. Just after my 18th birthday, the life-changing decision of whether to stay or go towered over me; I chose the courageous journey into the Great Unknown, leaving behind everything I had ever known to enrol in the University of Life and travel the world in search of meaning and pursuit of myself. 

My travels took me to Israel, Egypt, Europe, the UK, New Zealand and the Indian Subcontinent. I journeyed through the Himalayas in Nepal and explored the Andes mountain range in Bolivia and the rainforests of Peru. After a solo overland adventure from South Africa to Ethiopia, I visited Thailand and Cambodia. I was afforded the privilege of spending time with the tribal people in the forests of Gabon in West Africa and the San peoples in the Kalahari Dessert. I studied as I travelled, intrigued by the wide variety and diverse history of cultures, religions and peoples across the globe, with an emphasis on ancient civilizations, archeoastronomy, megaliths, symbolism, plant medicines, and indigenous peoples. Exploring belief systems, I was drawn to understanding the many interpretations of God and spirituality across multiple ideologies, past and present. 

Travelling through Europe, I encountered an alternative version of Christianity when studying the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons. Exposure to this mysterious underground stream of secret knowledge included the exploration of Alchemy, the Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Astrology, Tarot, Sacred Geometry, and the Philosophers Stone. Engaging with Mystical Christianity, the legends of the Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene, I was led back to the Bible in search of understanding. One of my major issues with the Bible revolved around the portrayal of God as a man with no feminine aspect to the divine. Discovering the hidden tradition of goddess worship in the Bible completely changed my attitude as I opened up to the possibility of an entirely new area of research available for study.

Up to this point on my journey, everything I had studied about Esoteric Christianity was theoretical. Much of the literature I encountered spoke of significant architectural landmarks like Rennes-le-Chataux in France, Roslyn Chapel in Scotland, Tomar in Portugal, Temple Church in London, the Louvre in Paris, and the alignments of Washington DC. There was never any mention of South Africa. I moved to the Mother City of Cape Town in 2008, where the theory I had been studying was evident in the city around me. I remember visiting as a child, but as an adult, the city remained entirely unexplored, so imagine my surprise when I discovered a hidden reality of secret knowledge immeshed within the architecture, art, and symbols scattered across the city.

My ancestors were Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony in the 19th century, and I was raised in Johannesburg, Transvaal, northern South Africa. A significant portion of the history taught to my generation confirmed the conservative Calvinistic Christian nature of our nation since it was founded in 1652. As per a Covenant established in the 1830s, the Afrikaner people were chosen by God to rule South Africa. Just like Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt to the Promised Land, the Voortrekkers decided to leave the oppressive rule of the British to create their version of the Promised Land outside the boundaries of the Cape Colony. Speakers at our primary schools in the 1980s would issue stern warnings against a litany of forbidden activities, including listening to rock music and avoiding Satanic symbols like the pentagram, the most evil of all symbols connected to the Devil himself. Discovering these symbols in churches, cathedrals and monuments, not only in Cape Town but across South Africa, accentuated the absurdity of the conditioning and propaganda I had endured as a child. The holy incongruence became more evident as I researched the historical significance of symbolism, leading to an entirely new understanding of history. 

Although this incongruence is evident in South African religious art, church architecture, monuments, and symbols, South Africa is simply a microcosm of the macrocosm; it can be found across the Western and Islamic worlds in countries like France, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Iran, Germany, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Scotland, Egypt, England, Italy, and most importantly, America. There are secrets contained in the Word of God that give rise to these mysteries. After extensive research and contemplation, exploring cultures, religions and civilizations and delving deeper into comparative religion and mythology across many continents and timelines, I slowly began to unravel and decode the Bible. An alternative understanding of God was hidden in plain sight in cities worldwide. A universal religion that traces its roots into the distant past. Correctly interpreting ancient cultural symbols through the ages, many can still be found in art and architecture in countries as diverse as Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, and Mexico, has significantly contributed to understanding the code in the Bible.

Although I have never been initiated into any secret society, the original Masonic secrets have also played a role in unpacking many of these mysteries. Freemasonry as a philosophy has been vilified and rejected not only by different religions but even by parts of mainstream society attracted to conspiracy theories, both on the left and the right. Yet the irony is that Freemasonry holds the keys to unlocking the Bible and it was fully integrated as part of most Protestant denominations until it fell out of favour. Masons have only been branded as evil in Protestant countries over the past few decades, bundled into the all-encompassing conspiracy of the Judeo-Masonic, Illuminati, New World Order controlling the world narrative. 

Catholicism has been opposed to the Craft since its official inception in 1717, even though Freemasonry played an enormous role in the founding of many nations, a fact that people tend to ignore, pretending a direct line can be drawn between the early colonial Christians and modern-day fundamentalist Christians. This illusionary theory conveniently skips the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries as if the American and French Revolutions never happened. No Scientific Revolution, no Enlightenment or Age of Reason. Without any intention to shield the Masons from the misperceptions and projections of the uninformed, the fact that they chose to be a secret society is relevant, considering it was paramount to their survival in the centuries past. Freemasonry represents a direct line between the modern era, the Bible, and ancient civilizations. The Bible is either wholeheartedly accepted or entirely rejected; there is no mainstream interpretation in our society that offers a middle path between science and religion.

As I am not sworn to an oath of secrecy, these mysteries are not secrets to keep, and I am free to share what I have learned. We should all have access to the truth. Similarly, I have not been baptized in the Christian faith. I do not prescribe to any particular religion choosing, instead, to align with the philosophies of ‘Reverence for Life’, and ‘Love One Another’.

When I left South Africa thirty years ago, I had no idea the path would lead me back to the Bible. I could not imagine becoming a Symbolist with an innate capacity to interpret some of the most obscure and sacred symbols found at the heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the process, I have freed myself from the prison-like conditioning of my youth. The journey has been long and arduous, and I hope I may at least have carved a way forward for others who might feel bound by belief systems forced upon them. We have all been raised under one or another form of conditioning, which we either accept, question, or reject. Courage is required to break from the familiar, the comfort, safety and security of belonging. Standing apart in the truth of our choices, no matter the cost is the risk we take to achieve self-realization, self-empowerment, self-respect and dignity. 

‘People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite…Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.’ Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom.