movement. Significantly, it recommended as one of the best solutions the tradition of Freemasonry. As the report states:
Of special interest to the Western world is that Freemasonry tradition which played such a significant role in the birth of the United States of America, attested to by the symbolism of the Great Seal (on the back of the dollar bill) ... Thus this... has the potentiality of reactivating the American symbols, reinterpreting the work ethic, supporting the basic concepts of a free-enterprise democratic society, and providing new meanings for the technological-industrial thrust. 18
Note the similarity to the pronouncements of 1940s Vice-President Henry Wallace — and, of course, the words of Edgar Cayce.
What is particularly significant is that this report was produced by SRI International at the very time that they were heavily involved with the CIA and the US Defense Department. Imagine how it must have made alarm bells ring in the corridors of power, especially as it stressed that such a transformation of society was inevitable. The only recourse for those in positions of power and authority was for them to actively hijack the belief systems that underpinned this social unrest, moving it in whatever direction gave them the greatest advantage and retaining their control over the masses.
An important component of the new belief system is the use of the symbolism of Freemasonry. The movement has traditionally claimed to have its roots in ancient Egypt and lays particular emphasis on the esoteric significance of Sirius, which decorates every Masonic Temple in the form of the ‘Blazing Star’.
Wallace, Cayce and SRI’s Changing Images of Man report each stress the importance of the role of the United States in promoting Masonic ideals, effectively creating the ideal Freemasonic state. 19 20 This was the over-riding motivation of many of the originators of the Declaration of Independence, such as Thomas Jefferson. (In fact, of the fifty-six signatories to the Declaration of Independence, fifty were Freemasons, as were fifty of the fifty-five members of the convention that drew up the American Constitution.) Willis W. Harman, at one time a consultant to the White House and one of the editors of the Changing Images report - who was also involved in SRI’s experiments with Uri Geller in the early 1970s, and, as president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, in their first remote-viewing experiments - went on to write An Incomplete Guide to the Future (1976). In his book he discusses the role of Freemasonry in the founding of the United States and defines what he calls the ‘American symbols’ - predominantly Masonic ideals. 21 In discussing the future of America he advocates a very similar scenario to that of Changing Images of Man, in other words, a society based on the principles of Freemasonry. He says:
The specific symbols associated with the nation’s birth have an additional significance. It is under these symbols, principles, and goals, properly understood, and no others [his emphasis], that the differing viewpoints within the nation can ultimately be reconciled. 22
Perhaps more significantly, Harman believes that the symbol of the pyramid with the floating capstone on the Great Seal ‘indicates that the nation will flourish only as its leaders are guided by supraconscious intuition’, 23 and he defines this as ‘divine insight’.
The fact that the SRI report draws attention to the Masonic symbolism on the back of the dollar bill is particularly interesting. The seal — originally incorporated into paper money by Henry Wallace - shows an incomplete pyramid, with its detached capstone, encompassing an open eye, floating in a halo of light. Under the pyramid are inscribed the Latin words novus ordo seclorum - ‘new order of the ages’.
To repeat Wallace’s words of 1934:
It will take a more definite recognition of the Grand Architect of the Universe before the apex stone is finally
Elizabeth Amelia Barrington