John Dickie : The Craft . How the Freemasons Made the Modern World . Hodder , 2020 . £ 10.99
Researched by a Professor but written by the proficient story-teller he is , this weighty book is worth reading since , despite being full of hard facts , it is also very entertaining . Dickie is a world authority on Mafia and Camorra and he admits that at times he has simplified the problem , claiming that Mafia is Freemasonry for criminals : especially when a Mafia boss was arrested in London in August 2013 and he was extensively interviewed and asked for comments . One evening he received an email from the Head of Communications of the United Grand Lodge of England inviting him to Freemasons ’ Hall for a chat . Having realised that there was no convincing and comprehensive publication on the subject , he started working on it , and this is the result . Neither a celebration nor a denigration , the book describes its faults as well as its positive points and results that certainly exceed the bad ones and illustrates the shocking false truths about Freemasonry that have sprung up everywhere in the world ! For a secret organisation it seems to have been easily infiltrated and hijacked in the most extraordinary way ! It is shocking to read about the Illuminati , but also its distorted lodges , especially in Italy , from the post-Risorgimento ones to Licio Gelli ’ s infamous P2 .
On the other side , in rather obscure times it has vastly contributed in promoting its ideals of freedom , equality and tolerance , shaping the societies we now live in and spreading in every continent ! From royalty to US Presidents , writers , musicians , artists , academics , scientists , the list of its members would fill another book . Rosa Park ’ s father and grandfather belonged to a black lodge ; Nehru and Kipling were members of the same one … to mention just two examples .
Meanwhile , its enemies were and still are formidable : the Roman Catholic Church , Mussolini , Franco , Hitler and even Gramsci , the founder of the Italian Communist Party . At present all the free countries have freemasonry , while dictatorships and repressive societies do not . The only exception among the Communists was Cuba , since their hero José Martí was a brother .
Three-quarters through the book , Dickie tells the touching story of his grandfather surviving the First World War and the depressing aftermaths also , thanks to the friendship and fraternity of his lodge . Which obviously was lacking in places like Italy where the disbanded and deceived soldiers turned towards subversive violent Fascism .
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