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The figure of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla is well known among those who take an interest in the inner workings of the Roman Curia, especially in events surrounding papal conclaves. He was famously very close to being elected Pope after the death of Pope Leo XIII in 1903, when he was vetoed on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

At that time, only three nations retained that ancient power of veto: Austria, Germany and Italy. Even so, Emperor Franz Joseph had been reluctant to intervene in such a solemn matter. He had no choice, however, once presented with evidence that Rampolla was at least associated with Masonry, if not a fully-fledged Freemason himself.

The evidence came from Monsignor Jouin, founder of the International Review of Secret Societies; a priest who dedicated his life to exposing Masonry and its associated ideology. It is said he went first to the Cardinals, but was ignored and so he took his evidence instead to the Emperor.This led to the saintly Pius X being elected instead of Rampolla.

There have been attempts to play down the role of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla in this matter: written histories vary as to the reason behind the veto, with some historians, even Catholic ones, concluding that the intervention was merely political. Some go so far as to accuse the Emperor of vengeance: after son had tragically died, apparently by his own hand, it is said that Rampolla denied the boy a Christian burial.

However, after Rampolla’s death in 1913, hard evidence implicating him in Masonry was discovered by the Curia. Papers confirming his membership were shown the Pope Pius X, who ordered them burned, ostensibly to protect the reputation of this ghastly man. Surely no favours were done to the Church or to the faith of Her members by covering up Rampolla’s true allegiances. Ecclesiastical Freemasonry in the Curia has only flourished from that point forward.

In 1929, Rampolla’s betrayal was corroborated by a Bishop Marty in an interview with Felix Lacointa of the newspaper, The Anti-Revolutionary Bloc. Bishop Marty stated that he had been told by Cardinal Merry dal Val, Secretary of Sate to Pius X that the Pope had indeed viewed and then destroyed the incriminating papers. [Cited in L’Église Éclipsée by Georges Vinson.]

What makes Rampolla’s case even more serious is that the specific cult in which he was involved was the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO. This cult is a blend of Masonry and Rosicrucianism, with a strong focus on magic and Rampolla is said to have achieved a very high status. While a man may join Masonry without fully realising what he is doing, the same cannot be said about the OTO. It is possible to potentially complete multiple rituals and levels in Masonry without understanding that one in fact giving one’s allegiance to Satan, believing that one is simply doing one’s best to be a good person by acknowledging God, albeit in the vaguest sense possible.

However, the OTO is something different. It is only approached by those who have a keen desire to access hidden knowledge and the powers that go with that.

There are several different routes into OTO initiation. Some first complete all the levels available at their local Masonic Lodge, finding that they still ‘want more’. Others complete several levels of Freemasonry then pivot to follow the seductive promises of magic, alchemy and power that are promised by the OTO and similar groups. Still others, knowingly rejecting the True God from the beginning, pursue from the beginning the rituals that promise them wealth, sex and power in this world, even while damning them in the next. Notably, the OTO has always been seen by Freemasons as something “irregular” and it has received many condemnations from within Masonry, particularly of the OTO’s homosexual rituals.

So what is the OTO and why is it so dangerous, yet so alluring to fallen human beings? Looking at one well-known member, Aleister Crowley, will shed some light on those questions. Crowley was among the OTO’s adherents at the end on the 19th century, eventually becoming a Grand Master. He publicly flaunted his immoral antics and invented some of his own rituals centred around sex magick.

It is perhaps this aspect for which he is most infamous. It was possibly Crowley, moreso than any other individual, who helped to make spell-casting, sexual deviancy and even satanism mainstream, to the point where, in our days, occult rituals at rock concerts and Olympic opening ceremonies are commonplace.

The sexual deviancy promoted by Crowley needs little explanation. It has saturated our culture to the point where its practitioners are a protected class. Even the diabolical Alfred Kinsey, the man responsible for deceiving millions of Westerners into accepting deviancy with his disgusting sexual experimentation on children, and even babies was a protege of Crowley’s.

Since sex-magick is integral to the OTO rituals, this means that Rampolla almost certainly engaged in such rituals. We can only wonder at how great a role he may have played in introducing rampant clerical homosexuality and pedophilia into the Church. ‘Uncle Ted’ McCarrick participated in sex-magick; Cardinals Bernadin and Murphy O’Connor were credibly accused of ritual sex abuse. The writings of Cardinal Tucho Fernandez are replete with sexual occultism and Rupnik is obviously into spiritualised sexual abuse.

When it comes to Rampolla, Crowley and McCarrick, though, there another link tying them to technocracy and the Synarchists: they all spent time in Switzerland. Crowley admitted to first dabbling with alchemy during a trip to Switzerland – a hotspot for the occult and the New World Order ‘elite.’ McCarrick is known to have spent many vacations at St. Gallen, which was also the birthplace of the notorious ‘St. Gallen Mafia’, those unworthy Cardinals who conspired to have Bergoglio elected to the papacy. Rampolla also vacationed in Switzerland, where, according to Felix Lacointa of The Anti-Revolutionary Bloc, that he regularly attended lodges in both Einsiedeln and Zurich.

Felix Lacointa provides the testimony of an unnamed French priest who, when on pilgrimage at Einsiedeln Abbey, was so impressed by Rampolla that he decided to write a favourable report on the conversations he had with the pilgrims. An Einsiedeln bookseller quickly brought him back to earth: “He is not worth it! Every fortnight he goes to the lodge in Zurich!”

Einsiedeln and St. Gallen are only a short distance from each other by car, and each is almost equidistant from Davos, the regular gathering spot for the world’s technocrats, many of whom are part of their own diabolical and esoteric group, Synarchy. Like members of the OTO (and it must be remembered, many of these occult groups overlap in both philosophy and membership), Synarchists access ‘secret knowledge’ from demons which they use to steer the world toward total enslavement to science and rationalism. All three sites are close to Zurich, as well as Lucerne, known as a centre of the OTO in the early twentieth century.

Our knowledge of Rampolla’s alleged attendance at lodges in Switzerland, and his founding of a lodge for ecclesiastics within the walls of the Vatican is confirmed by the occultist (and apostate priest) Roca. Roca moved in circles with Saint-Alveydre, Eliphas Levi and other like-minded magicians. Roca and others stated that Rampolla set up an ecclesiastical lodge within the Vatican, something the Marquis de la Franquerie claimed was recognised by St. Pius X. Roca also included the names of other Cardinals: Ferrata, Gasparri, Ceretti, Béa, and Liénart.

Tellingly, the name of this lodge is dedicated to St. John [either St. John the Baptist or St. John of Jerusalem] which was, of course, the name taken by Angelo Roncalli when he ascended to the papacy in 1958. St. John is apparently a “patron saint” of occultists, along with St. Michael the Archangel.

Rampolla’s name can still be found in registers compiled by members of the OTO. One website, to which I won’t link, lists his name among other famous members: Eliphas Levi, Nietzsche, Papus and Richard Wagner. The page seems to be reproduced from an OTO publication called The Equinox. That journal was once said to be highly confidential but that can hardly be the case now that it is freely available on the ‘net.

While there have been concerted efforts in the last few years to expose Rampolla’s involvement with an esoteric cult, the fact that he is known as a Freemason rather than as an occultist is intriguing. Freemasonry is often treated as a threat of the past and tolerated as no longer being seen as subversive. The result is that the word, “Freemasonry” has largely lost its meaning. Like “abortion” and “gay” the word no longer evokes an image of its true nature, indicating that the trend of describing Rampolla merely as a Mason might be part of the whitewash.

Cardinal Alfons Stickler once told a reputable monk that Annibale Bugnini was something “far worse than a Freemason.” One can only wonder what that was and whether Bugnini was merely following in the magical, alchemical footsteps of Mariano Rampolla.