Transcript of Dr. William (Bill) Schnoebelen on Almost False Podcast

And I said, well, of course. Doesn’t every Christian want to be like Christ? He said, well, if you want to be like Christ, you need to do what Christ did. And again, that made sense.

And again, you know, nowadays we’ve kind of become suspicious about priests, but this is like 1968, and a priest was like God. I mean, whatever the priest said, that was it, you know. And he said, well, if you want to be like Christ, then you do what he did. And he went to the east and studied with the gurus in India. He went and studied with the lamas in Tibet. He went to Egypt and studied with the magicians there. That’s how he was able to raise the dead, to walk on water, do all these miracles. So he says, what you need to do is you need to start studying the occult. And this is a priest telling me this.

And so I thought, okay. Now, mind you, you know, this is obviously decades before there was an Internet. I mean, there was a little bookstore downtown. And I went there and I found a few scattering books on, like, the occult. And I found this book that was called “Diary of a Witch” by Sybil Leake. And she was one of the very first witches to, so to speak, come out of the broom closet. She was a British woman, and she was a medium.

And anyhow, I read the book, and she was asserting in the book that witches were not evil, that this was an ancient pagan mystery religion. Among other things, she claimed that Jesus was a witch and his 12 apostles were his coven, along with their wives, you know. So I kind of bought into that. And I wrote to this guy, Alex Sanders, who was the supposed king of the witches over in London. I sent him a letter. This is around 1968, 69. And his wife sent me back a thing, okay, here’s a coven in Rockford, Illinois, which is about 90 minutes from Dubuque.

I went there, and I got initiated as a witch. And then later on, I hooked up with an Alexandrian coven in Boston, and I was made a witch high priest. Started covens in, first of all in Dubuque, where I was, and then moved to Milwaukee because there was a fellow there who had an occult bookstore, you know, because Milwaukee is a huge city. And he said, I’ve got all these people that want to become witches. Can you come and teach them?

Understanding Witchcraft

INTERVIEWER: When we’re talking about, like, you being in a coven, you doing witchcraft, I just want to make sure that we don’t skip over that part. Like, what kind of witchcraft are we talking about?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: It was, okay, witchcraft originally, you know, the kind of publicly available witchcraft was originally started by Gerald Gardner. And he came out when witchcraft became legal in England. It was a crime until 1951 when it was made legal. And he claimed—all this is disputed—but he claimed that he came in contact with an ancient coven of witches in the New Forest region of England. They initiated him and then made him high Priest, and he went off and initiated other people.

Then there’s this other bunch, this Alexander’s fellow. He also claims to have been initiated by an ancient line of witches by his grandmother. So those were the two main fountainheads of witchcraft in the 60s. Both were from England, but both had spread to America, and it was white witchcraft.

Both groups, their rituals were virtually identical. But the Alexandrian group that I was in was more into ceremonial magic, which is like kind of if, you know, like Protestantism, they have the distinction between high church and low church. Well, Alexandrian is more high church witchcraft.

But we didn’t believe in the devil. We didn’t think we were worshiping the devil. We thought we were worshiping a goddess, a moon goddess and a horn God. So it was like ditheism, if you will, two deities. And we didn’t believe in demons. We just believed that it was all this nature, airy fairy, you know, gathering herbs in the forest and dancing in the nude. And, you know, it all sounds very innocent, except there’s, especially in the Alexandrian rite, there’s also some sex magic that’s involved. So does that kind of answer your question?

INTERVIEWER: Yes, yes, thank you for clarifying. I just wanted to make sure that we got that coverage. Actually, let’s go back to the occult bookstore that you were talking about, and let’s pick up the story from there.

Deeper Into the Darkness

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, so anyway, I mean, so we hooked up with this fellow in the basement of the store. We would hold these classes, and they were packed because there were all these people. And again, this was kind of 1972, and, you know, there were all these people kind of like quasi hippies, and they wanted to get into the occult, magic and blah, blah, blah.

The other thing that happened at the same time is that we encountered this fellow called Eli, who was a grandmaster druid of North America. And druids are a little bit different than witches. It’s kind of like the difference between being a Baptist and being a Methodist, you know. And we were invited down to Arkansas, which is where this fellow lived. He lived on top of a mountain. He had kind of an organic farm there. And we went through the whole summer, got all this occult training. We were, you know, high priests by the time we got done.

At one point, I understand this fellow that owned the occult bookstore, he was kind of a manipulative guy who was very, you know, he was older than me, very cunning. He told me, took me aside and he said, you know, if you really want to understand magic, you need to read this book. And he handed me the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey. And I said, well why would I want to read the Satanic Bible? Witches don’t believe in Satan. And he said, well, just read the book.

And LaVey’s contention was that magic is really about Satan, but Satan is like an archetype. He said there is no real Satan, but it’s like an energy egregore, an archetype that you can draw upon. And it kind of made sense to me. And again the devil was gradually pulling me in. Like the whole thing about the camel getting its nose into the tent, before you know it the camel’s in there.

So I wrote the Church of Satan, which at that time was in San Francisco. I became a member, a first degree member. And then later on I went through some exams and studies and I became a warlock which was a second degree member of the Church of Satan.

And at this also I should say this because this is critical. This Eli guy, the Grand Druid down in Arkansas, he gave us two words of advice. First of all he said if you really want to understand Luciferian energy, you need to join the Freemasonic Order. And he himself was a 33rd degree Mason. He showed me his little certificate.

He also told me that if you ever felt like we were in deep spiritual trouble, that I should join the Mormon Church because it was a church divided and started by witches, four witches that we could hang out in and pretend to be nice, you know, that, you know, the image of the Mormon Church, they’re straight, nice, wonderful, all American people with happy families and white picket fences and, you know, all of that. But secretly they believe almost the same doctrines of witches belief. And we can get into that if you want.

But anyhow, so he gave us that advice again. This was in the early 70s, so I joined the Masonic Lodge, became a master Mason at the same time as I was a Satanist and a witch. And only our inner circle of the witches that we, by this time we’ve initiated over 100 witches. And only our inner circle knew that we were also Satanists. And we were continuing in this.

And I finally figured out that there was a deeper level of Satanism and I got in touch with some of them again, there was no Internet, we had to do all this by mail and whatnot. And there was a group in Michigan called the Order of the Black Ram, which is like more hardcore satanic stuff. There was another group in Chicago called the Brotherhood and I got involved with them because they were closer because Milwaukee’s just up the road about 90 miles from Chicago. And I got really… I mean, I sold my soul to the devil. That’s how deep I got into this.

Introduction to Freemasonry

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Before we actually get to that part, I want to make sure to take some time to talk about Freemasonry, because Freemasonry, it’s very rare to actually talk to former Masons because it’s something that you’re not supposed to talk about. So it’s kind of an opportunity, while I have you here, to learn, but also for the people to kind of have a knowledge about what Freemasonry is. You said that you became a Master Mason. Can you explain how the degrees and the lodges are set up in Freemasonry so people actually understand what we’re talking about?

The Structure of Freemasonry

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, the basic thing is what’s called the Blue Lodge, and that consists of three degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. A lot of Masons never go any further than that. I did. But basically, it’s like an initiatory process.

The requirements are – at that time, this is when I joined in ’75 – you had to be a man, freeborn, of good report and well recommended. They asked you if you believe in God. And I said, yes, I did. They didn’t ask which God I believed in. They just asked, “Do you believe in God?” And I said yes. I didn’t tell them that the God I believed in had horns.

So anyhow, I went through the whole process. You do a lot of memory work, they call it. You memorize all of these ritual things. You have a mentor who’s called your poster, who’s an older Mason. The guy that I had was a very kind guy, an executive in the power company. He helped me memorize all this stuff. Then you go to second degree, and then you have a whole bunch more to memorize.

The Initiation Process

People ask me, “Well, at what point does Masonry start to look creepy?” I mean, there are tons of Christians that are Masons, literally thousands of them. And I just ask them, how can you do that?

When you start out as a Mason, they make you come to the lodge, they make you take off all your clothes except your undies. They put you in these jammies – they’re like pajamas. Typically one knee is bare and one breast is bare, your left breast and I think your right knee. And you’re blindfolded. You have a cable around your neck. It’s like a belt. They call it a cable toe. It’s like a velvet blue rope.

You’re tied up and you’re led to the door of the lodge with a guy leading you because of course you’re blindfolded. He knocks on the door and somebody – this is all ritualized – the guy on the other side says, “Who comes here?” And your guide, who’s a lodge officer, says, “Mr. Bill Schnoebelen, who has been long in darkness and now seeks to be brought to light to receive the rights and benefits of the worshipful lodge erected to God, as all members have done before.”

And I asked Mr. Christian, Mr. Pastor, Mr. Elder – because there used to be 40% of the pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention who were Freemasons – how can you say that you’re in darkness when you have Jesus in your heart?

You go into the lodge, you’re led around, they call it circumambulation. You walk around the lodge, they have these officers, the junior warden, the senior warden at the different points of the compass. And in the east is the worshipful master who’s the big cheese. Then you’re made to kneel at this altar. You’re still blindfolded. And you’re made to understand that you’re putting your hands on this huge pulpit Bible, a big King James Bible.

This worshipful master comes forward and says, “We’re going to lead you through this oath.” I’m not going to go through the whole oath because it takes like five minutes, but it’s this long, involved, and ultimately blood-curdling oath. The essence of the oath is to keep the secrets of an Entered Apprentice Mason, which of course I’m violating right now.

At the end, you swear: “If I should ever reveal the secrets of an Entered Apprentice Mason, I swear that I will have my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by the roots and buried in the sands of the sea where the tide ebbs and flows twice in 24 hours should I ever knowingly violate this my Entered Apprentice obligation, so help me God, and keep me steadfast to the due performance of the same.”

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I think it would raise the hair on the back of the necks of pretty much most people just to hear that.

The Religious Nature of Freemasonry

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Yeah. And then at that point, the worshipful master says, “My brother, in your current situation, what do you most desire?” And then the guy that’s with you, the senior warden, whispers in your ear, “Light,” and I say, “Light.” And then they remove the blindfold.

You see before you this big open Bible with a square and compass on it. Those represent the three great lights of Masonry: the Bible, the square, and the compass. And then they are revealed by the three lesser lights of Masonry, which are three burning tapers that are adjacent to the altar.

That’s the most mild initiation. From there on, they get more and more creepy. Basically, Masonry is an antichrist thing. It claims it’s not religious, but it is. They play around with it because they say, “Oh, well, we’re just religious, but we’re not a religion.” Because if they were a religion, then if you were already a Christian, you shouldn’t join another religion. Most Christians would say that – if you’re a Christian, you wouldn’t become a Buddhist.

INTERVIEWER: Right?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, Masonry is a religion. I mean, it has all the qualities. That’s what I tell people. If you look at Webster’s Dictionary, there’s three things that make something a religion according to Webster:

1. It has a belief in some sort of deity. Masonry has that. 2. That belief is expressed in some sort of ritual. And Masonry is full of ritual – that’s pretty much all it is.

3. It has a system of some sort of ethics or morality. And Masonry has that.

So Masonry is a religion and it’s an antichrist religion. The problem is that if you drill down into this deep enough and read the books written by people like Albert Pike, Albert Mackey, Arthur Edward Waite – these are three prominent scholars of 19th century, early 20th century Masonry – all of them were occultists. Arthur Edward Waite wrote a book on black magic and how to sell your soul to the devil.

In my book – shameless plug, this is an older edition, the first edition, it looks different now – I document how almost every single leading occult person of the late 19th and early 20th century was a Freemason. They just go together like love and marriage.

Masonic Literature and Occult Connections

INTERVIEWER: If people want to look at these books, I just want you to give them an idea. Because if they want to confirm that for themselves, what books are you talking about? What people are you talking about?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, there’s “Morals and Dogma” by Albert Pike. He was like the greatest Masonic scholar in America in the 19th century. He was the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite. And he’s buried in the Scottish Rite Temple 13 blocks from the White House.

The other one is Albert Mackey’s “Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.” There’s Arthur Edward Waite, who has a whole bunch of books on Masonry. Again, all these are footnoted in my book with lots of pages of footnotes because I’m not just making this stuff up.

The other person who really you need to pay attention to, because he’s more contemporary, is Manly P. Hall.

INTERVIEWER: I have, yeah.

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Yeah. Well, he was one of the most notable occultists in America in the 20th century. He passed away in 1994, I think. He was the head of the Philosophical Research Society. He was a very high-level ceremonial magician. And he was also a 33rd degree Mason.

He wrote this book, “Lost Keys of Freemasonry.” And in that book, among many things, he says that when you become a Master Mason, you are like a warrior on the block. And that’s in a Masonic code. And the seething energies of Lucifer are yours to command.

INTERVIEWER: So these are like the biggest Freemasonic figures that we know about today. And yet most Freemasons have no idea about this.

The Average Mason’s Experience

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Yeah, because they don’t read the books. They just join the Lodge for whatever reason – it might be for business. Because, see, it used to be that up until I think the early 90s, lawyers and doctors were not allowed to advertise. They couldn’t put an ad in the telephone book. It was like an ethics thing. And so the only way that lawyers and doctors could kind of build up business was by Masonry. They joined the Masonic Lodge. They send referrals to one another – a good old boys network.

So that’s why a lot of people joined the Lodge. Many people join it because they had an uncle or a father or a brother who was in it. And honestly, unless you really understand the occult, it’s boring. Imagine the most boring church service you’ve ever been in. And having spent five years in the Mormon Church, I can relate to that. But guys were sitting there snoring during the Masonic ritual when I was there.

When I was involved in this, I was like the youngest guy in the lodge by 20 years. All these guys were like 50, 60, 70 years old, and basically they were there because they were buddies. Afterwards they play poker and eat sandwiches or something.

The Dark Side of Masonry

But what none of these men understand, I don’t think, is that deep down inside there’s this very dark, evil energy which is very sexualized. We document in the book how many men that have come to us over the years for deliverance – they were in Masonry and they began to be drawn into wickedness, into perversion, and even into pedophilia. It’s dark, dangerous stuff because it opens up unholy desires within the men.

Because of the way the spiritual world works, that in turn percolates down into their family. It affects the wife, who may or may not be involved because there’s a women’s order of Masonry called the Order of the Eastern Star, whose symbol is a Satanic pentagram, by the way.

It affects your children. So many men that were Masons, at first it didn’t create a problem, but when their children started hitting puberty, they just started to go in various ways, nuts. Because of this trickle-down influence of the Masonic Lodge.

INTERVIEWER: I actually interviewed a woman whose dad was a Freemason and something very similar to that happened to her. She was never involved in the Eastern Stars. And as far as I understand, her mom wasn’t involved either. But there was an element of the children thing that you talked about with their family being abused, her siblings. And she also, around puberty, started developing some weird things. It does correlate with what you’re talking about. But I want to make sure that people understand – I want to go back to the degrees of Freemasonry. You talked about the Blue Lodge. You also mentioned the Scottish Rite. There’s the York Rite. Can you explain how that’s set up so people actually understand what it means to be a 33rd degree Mason? Because I think there’s a lot of confusion around it.

The Degrees of Freemasonry

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, it’s a little complicated, but in America (English Masonry is different), after Blue Lodge, it forks off in two directions. You can either go to the Scottish Rite or the York Rite. The York Rite has 7 degrees. The Scottish Rite has 29 degrees.

When I was made a Master Mason, I was told – because at that time, believe it or not, I was going to the seminary to become an Old Catholic priest, and some of my brother Masons knew that – “Well, the York Rite is the Christian path, so to speak. So why don’t you go up that thing first?” So I did. And the top of the York Rite is what is called the Knights Templar degree.

Now in the Scottish Rite you have these 29 degrees. Some of them are really creepy, I mean seriously creepy. They have one, I think it’s the 19th degree, where they actually try to call up the devil. And finally at the top, the 32nd degree, which is the Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. And that’s as high as most people go.

If you’re some really important person either in industry or in politics or entertainment, you might be offered to become a 33rd degree Mason, which is the highest degree in American Masonry. Many people – presidents, actors like Roy Rogers, Harry Truman, all kinds of celebrities, Burl Ives – they’re 33rd or were (they’re all deceased now) 33rd degree Masons, Gene Autry, many of these people.

So that’s the structure of it. And there’s nuances in the York Rite that are very creepy, but the Scottish Rite is much more creepy.

Freemasonry and Secret Orders

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Okay, so to make sure everyone understands kind of what you already set up, I’ll try to summarize it. So there’s the Blue Lodge, which everyone has to go through, which is 3 degrees and then you have two choices. Either the York Rite, which is 7, or the Scottish Rite, which is 29. So 3 plus 29 equals 32. So 32 degrees in honorary 33rd degree for people that are deemed to be important. So that’s kind of how it worked. Only on the Scottish Rite. That’s where the 33rd degree happens.

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, actually. Okay, let me just correct some.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, yes, please.

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: If you’re a 10th degree Knight Templar, you can be common authority to a 33rd degree Mason even if you never went through the Scottish Rite.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Minor detail, but thank you for clarifying. So, all right, now we talked about the 33rd degree Mason. People usually are like, that’s the highest level of Freemasonry that there is. There’s also a bunch of people that talk about, you know, this, there’s secrets in Freemasonry that a lot of people don’t know about. And you have to be deemed worthy to be told these secrets. You became a 33rd degree Mason and you eventually join this secret group or secret order or whatever you want to call it. Can you explain what that is?

The Hidden Degrees and Dark Secrets

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Okay, well, beyond what we’ve just been talking about over in Europe is what’s called the Rite of Memphis Misraim. And that is 360 degrees beyond what I’ve already discussed, and most Masons don’t even know about that. Now I got up to the, if memory serves, 96th degree. And how I did that is there was a group in Chicago where they were involved with that thing because Chicago was and probably still is a major nexus of Satanism. Most people don’t know that.

So this group brought me into Memphis Misraim. And then ultimately there was a fellow that flew over all the way from Paris who was the son of Papus. Now, you probably don’t know that name, but Papus was a very prominent 19th century, high level occultist and ceremonial magician. And he wrote a book called the Tarot of the Bohemians about tarot cards, and he came over and he brought me into the 97th degree. And this is where you get into the really deep stuff, the ideas behind sexual alchemy, how to supposedly live forever, you know, all this creepy stuff.

Anyway, I would go up to these guys that had been in the Scottish Rite forever, you know, older men that were in their 60s, and I say, okay, I’m now a sublime prince of the Royal Secret. They did this initiation and I was a sublime prince of the Royal secret. I said, so what’s the Royal Secret? They go, I don’t know. Now whether they were just feigning ignorance because at this time I was like in my late 20s or what, I don’t know.

But I learned eventually after getting into the Rite of Memphis Misraim. And again, this is something that probably only one in a thousand Masons in America understands, is that the Royal secret is that you can live forever by sexually vampirizing children, literally. And that’s what these people believed.

Now, again, the vast majority of Masons have no understanding of any of this. They just think it’s this good old boys club that teaches morality. And this is the way with almost all of these groups, whether it’s the Mormons or the Masons or the witches or the Vatican, they all had this vast number of reasonably good people, in some cases very good people under them that are sort of feeding them all of this energy.

Because let me back up. When I was into Satanism, we understood and were taught that Satan draws energy from being worshiped. And when these guys, even if they don’t understand it, every time a Mason kneels at the altar and swears an oath, the devil gets energy from that. And again, most Masons, if they heard this, they would be scandalized. They’d say, this guy’s a nut.

But the funny thing is, and like you say, you’ve talked with people who, to a greater degree or a lesser degree, and believe me, we talked to dozens of people over the years in ministry who came to us who were sodomized as children, who were literally taken to the Masonic Lodge after hours, laid on that very same altar that the holy King James Bible laid on. And they were gang raped by a bunch of old men that were all high level Masons until they were practically dead.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that’s pretty much the story that I heard without details, because it was an eyewitness account, it was a secondhand witness, but similar to what I heard before. So, okay, a lot said about Freemasonry and you kind of said how Freemasonry is worshipping Lucifer. And I think that’s made very clear in the books that you talked about. If you want to check the references, they can check your book or they can go directly to the references if they doubt anything, because it’s in there. I want to go back to something that you said earlier because we kind of did a tangent on Freemasonry because I thought it was very important. But you talked about selling your soul. Let’s get back to that because I definitely don’t want to ignore that. Can you explain the circumstances around that?

Selling His Soul to Satan

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, again, there was this group in Chicago and they were entwined with this Memphis Misraim rite and they were also with this. It was like two things together, the brotherhood, which I mentioned earlier, and then this Memphis Misraim thing. And I interacted with these people and at a certain point they said, well, if you want to go any further and become a Satanic priest, you need to sell your soul to the devil.

And so they took me to this park in Glen Ellen, Illinois, which is like a suburb of Chicago. I don’t know if it’s still there or not, but it was a very weird park. It was broad daylight and they said, don’t worry about it, you know, the cops are all devil worshipers. And in the center of the park there was this area where they had these weird Egyptian statues. There was literally an altar with horns, you know, kind of like the pictures you see of the altar in the temple of Solomon.

And they brought out this black book and there were all these names in it. And this one supposed high level Satanist kind of officiated. And I swore an oath to Satan, my allegiance to him, that I would serve him for seven years and he would give me everything I wanted, you know, wine, women, song, power, occult power, whatever. And at the end of those seven years, he could kill me and take me to hell.

By that time I had been told that Satanists believe that hell is like one long orgy of drugs, sex and rock and roll, so to speak. So I didn’t think going to hell was a bad thing at that time. So I had to sign my name in blood in this black book. And supposedly, this sounds funny, but I was supposed to go out and find seven people to sell their souls to the devil under me, so to speak. Sort of like multi-level marketing, but for the devil. And I did. I got seven.

And I feel so bad about this. I’ve contacted as many of these people as I can find to try and talk them out of it and repent and all that. But still I didn’t have the things I needed. My life was not good. Even though I was supposedly this high level warlock, satanic priest, blah, blah, blah. I was working in a nothing job, you know, I was a security guard in a warehouse, barely getting by.

And then what happened is I’d written a check. Every year I wrote a check to the Church of Satan, I think it was for $10 to renew my subscription. They had a newsletter, probably still do, called the Cloven Hoof. And when I got the check back from the bank, because they used to do that, someone had written on the check, some lady, by the handwriting, “I’ll be praying for you in Jesus name.” And I just scoffed.

And the funny thing is, let me just say, I had not had any contact with Christians. Nobody ever tried to witness to me. Nobody had ever come to our door and try to give us tracts or talk about Jesus. Even the Jehovah Witnesses never came to our door because they were scared of us, because people understood. They’d see us out in the backyard in the moonlight in black robes dancing around.

So anyway, I got this check and I just scoffed at it. And literally within 24 hours, it was like I was hit with a freight train. I lost all my occult power and believe me, magical power is real. I lost my job. I got as sick as a dog. And I thought, what the heck?

So we had an altar up in the attic, the whole attic, we painted it black and we had a magic circle on the floor. I had a big statue of Pan, you know, the horned God, all kinds of creepy stuff. And I went up there and I knelt and I prayed to Lucifer and I said, what’s going on? I’ve done everything you’ve told me and my life is just increasingly gone to hell, literally.

And the funny thing is, even when I was praying to Lucifer, Jesus answered my prayer. Because the next day we got a call from these two teenage Satanist girls from Chicago. They wanted to come up and meet me because they heard I was this great satanic priest. And so they came up on the train, they said, we had a gift for you. And I thought, well, I could use a gift right now because I just lost my job. I don’t have hardly any money.

And they show up at the door and they sit adoringly at my feet and they give me these two comic books from Chick Publications.

INTERVIEWER: I’m not. I think I’m too young for that.

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: It’s a Christian publishing house. And he made these, I don’t know how many there are now, but at the time there were like 15 or so full color comic books. But they were about Christian themes and they were intended to be soul-winning tools. And in the back of them there was a thing about how to get born again.

And the two that these kids gave me, I say kids because they were probably in their late teens. One was called “Spellbound” and one was called “Angel of Light.” And you can look these up. They’re probably available online and they are about the dangers of the occult and about how Lucifer is really the God behind all false religions. And I just looked at them, whatever, you know, and threw them in the closet and forgot about them.

Well, anyway, the next day there’s a knock on the door and we open it up and it’s Mormon missionaries. Never had one come before. And they always are in two, two young men. And I remembered what this guy said, this grandmaster druid back in 1973, we’re now in 1980. And we joined the Mormon Church because we thought that was where we were supposed to be. This was a sign from Lucifer.

So I joined the Mormon Church. I tried to be a good Mormon. I stopped doing dope, I stopped having orgies. I was just monogamous. And the only thing we did, because we had been led to believe by this druid guy that the Mormons were white witches. And so we still did white witchcraft, but we didn’t do Satanism anymore. We got all of that out of our lives, went to the temple in the Mormon Church, did all their secret rituals, which are very Masonic.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s actually stop there because this is actually important. What kind of role did you have in the Mormon’s church? Because we just talked about missionaries coming to your house and you said you joined. Can you explain a little bit, you know, the progression and what kind of role you eventually got there?

# Mormon Temple Rituals

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Yeah, well, okay, you get baptized and then after a year, if you mind your P’s and q’s and pay your tithing and all of that, you’re made an elder. And that’s what I was. I was an elder and then later I was made an elders quorum president. So that’s like an administrative role right under the bishop.

Now, understand in a Mormon church, at least back then in the 80s, a bishop isn’t like what most people think of as some really high level guy. In the Mormon Church, the bishop is the head of a local congregation. They call it a Ward. And an elders quorum president is kind of like right under the bishop and takes care of administrative stuff.

I had gotten a temple recommend, which is like a card that allows you to go to the temple because you’re not allowed to go to the temple unless you’re worthy. At that time, we went to Salt Lake City because that’s like the Cadillac of Mormon temples, the Salt Lake Temple. And we went through the rituals there.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

# Secret Temple Experiences

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Okay. Well, so we go now, mind you, we had information from this grandmaster druid. He said, give these words to the guy when you go into the Mormon Temple. And they had a system which is probably kind of ahead of its time. This was in 1981, where you had this card with some kind of magnetic coding they put into the machine, and that would indicate you’re legit.

We were told to say these words. And when we put these words into the computer after our card, the whole system crashed the entire computer system. They didn’t know what to do about that, so they took us through the ritual, which involves hours. It’s kind of like the Masonic ritual on steroids.

You go downstairs, you get all basically naked, they wash your body, and it’s done man to man, woman to woman, but they wash your body, they anoint your body with oil. You’re given this magical temple garment, which you may or may not have heard of.

What’s interesting is just to back one step up. A lot of people don’t know Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon Church. In 1844, he was made a master mason in Nauvoo, Illinois. And after he was made a master mason, he kind of stole most of the Masonic ritual and created this temple ceremony. The whole thing is just bizarre. I have a video called “Mormonism’s Temple of Doom,” a DVD that goes into all this in detail.

After this is all over, we were invited to go meet with the president of the Salt Lake Temple, which is kind of a big deal. He said, “What can I do for you?” And I said, well, we’ve been told—we didn’t say by a Druid—but we’ve been told that we need to talk to an apostle.

Now, understand, in the Mormon Church, there’s this hierarchy. There’s the prophet who’s called the president, and then there’s the first presidency, which is two advisors and the prophet. Under them are 12 apostles. So he said, “Well, I’ll see what I can do.” So he arranged for us to go to the church office building and meet with one of the 12 apostles. At that time it was Elder James Faust. Believe it or not, that was his name, Faust, which is kind of weird—Faust is a very prominent name in the history of the occult.

So we went there, up into the church office building, and to make a long story short, he said, “Well, what do you want to talk to us about?” I said, “Well, we had these dreams.” This is true. And again, back then, nobody knew what was going on in the Mormon temples. The stuff had not been made public in any way. A couple years after this, a couple, Chuck and Dolly Sackett put out a book called “What’s Going on in There.” They were former temple workers and they reveal the whole thing.

I said, we saw this ritual where there was this white altar with a satin covering, just like what’s in the celestial room of the Mormon Temple. And on it was this naked young girl. And everybody was around chanting “Hail Lucifer.” And this apostle guy said, “Well, I can tell you are very extraordinary people and I bear you my solemn testimony.” This is a big deal. If you ever talk to a Mormon, if they start saying “I bear my solemn testimony,” this is like a big deal for them.

He said, “What you have said is true. And if you can come to Salt Lake and live here, we will find a place for you in the worship of the temple.”

# Connections Between Freemasonry and Mormonism

INTERVIEWER: So I’m actually curious about one thing. You talked about the druid telling you that Luciferian secrets were found in Freemasonry and in the Mormon Church. And you had been a Freemason at that point. You also went to the temple in Salt Lake. Can you talk about the similarities, if there are some and what are they, between Freemasonry and Mormonism?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, first of all, if you go to Temple Square, you’ll see Masonic handshakes, you’ll see the all seeing eye, you’ll see the sun, the moon, the stars. There’s no crosses on the Mormon Temple. There’s nothing Christian on the outside of the Mormon Temple.

When you get inside the temple, most of the similarities are the fact that you go through three levels and in each level you’re taught hand signs and handshakes and things that are all very similar to Masonic stuff. And you are made to swear an oath.

In the first level, you put your hand to your throat and go like this, the same as you do in the entered apprentice degree of the Masonic Lodge. In the third level, you are taught another set of secret handshakes. And then you’re instructed, and this is where it gets really Masonic. You’re instructed to go up and they have this veil, which they say is like the veil in Solomon’s Temple.

You’ve got Masonic markings. You have a square and a compass on your chest, you have another marking on your navel and another Masonic marking on your knee. The same markings are on the veil, but they’re stitched, so they’re holes. And there’s a guy on the other side of the veil that you can’t see who represents Heavenly Father, he represents God.

You go up to this guy and you’re instructed to put your hand through the veil. And this is called the five points of fellowship. And this is right out of Masonry, right out of witchcraft, Gardnerian, Alexandrian witchcraft. Masonry and Mormonism all have these five points.

The five points of fellowship are foot to foot, knee to knee, hand to back, breast to breast, and mouth to ear. So you’re embracing this unknown guy through this veil, and he whispers to you the secret name of the celestial kingdom. Are you ready for this?

INTERVIEWER: I don’t know.

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: I think it’s “health in the navel, marrow in the bones, strength in the loins and in the sinews, power in the priesthood be upon me and my posterity for all generations of time and all eternity.”

Now, that might sound reasonably benign, except for the fact that it’s almost word for word out of the Satanic grimoire. It’s a Satanic incantation. The only difference is that obscene words are used.

When you’re done with that, this guy draws you through the veil into what is called the Celestial room, the Celestial kingdom. And basically, it’s like this beautifully appointed room, everything is in white or light beige, with sofas. It’s like being in a really fancy hotel lobby and people are invited to just sit and absorb the wonderfulness of it.

They believe, literally that God the Father, who they believe to be a man in a body, invisibly walks around this celestial room. I don’t know if you know this or not, but they believe he has hundreds of goddess wives and that he is constantly impregnating these wives who give birth to spirit children who come down. And they believe that every child that is born on Earth is first fathered in heaven with Heavenly Father and one of his goddess wives.

# Life Inside the Mormon Church

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I’ve heard about that. And I think a lot of Mormons, if they hear you talking, they say that’s not true. But if you actually go back to the history of what Joseph Smith taught, you’ll see and if you talk to some of the elders in the Mormon Church that know about this stuff, they’ll tell you about it. But what I find in what you said is essentially that you know the details of Mormonism and Freemasonry—the details are different, but the structure is very, very similar. And you can see where kind of Joseph Smith took it from, especially since he was a Freemason. So that’s super interesting. I want to go back to your story, though, because you joined the Mormon Church to try to help your life. You were really struggling at the time, and you’re trying to become a better person, have a better life and all of that. What did your life look like inside of the Mormon Church?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, it was better. But of course, part of that was because I was no longer actively worshiping the devil. I mean, I thought I was worshiping the true God, but I wasn’t. And I eschewed all of my vices. I mean, I was no longer doing cocaine or smoking dope. I never was one for drinking alcohol. So, I mean, it was better.

But as I rose in the ranks, and this is kind of an—I’m glad you asked this question. As I became an Elders Quorum president, and again, I don’t know how things are now, but back in the early 80s, the Elders Forum president was supposed to see that all of these guys under him, these elders, would go out and visit every home in the ward, in the local congregation to see how they were doing and to bring them a message from the Prophet.

I’ll tell you one thing the Mormons get right. Like I tell people, even a broken clock is right twice a day. And they are very good at taking care of their people. If you saw a neighbor who was in trouble in some way, like they needed their sidewalk shoveled or whatever, you would go do that. And the idea was you were going to go and love bomb this neighbor and make them want to join the Mormon Church. And that’s pretty good. I don’t fault that.

But you’ve got to realize for me, just to put this in perspective. At this time I had a job working in a retail store 40 hours a week. In addition to that, I literally had to spend another 40 hours a week working for the Mormon Church with no pay because none of the people, except at the very highest levels of the Mormon Church get any salary. So again, that’s an admirable thing. But I was just working myself to death and oftentimes I would have to go and do the home teaching because I couldn’t find somebody else to do it.

I’ll tell you this one story. There was this one guy, I won’t say his name, but he was this older fellow, he was sweet as can be, married, had a family, but he was stuck at being a deacon. A deacon is a 12-year-old boy. If you turn the age of 12 years old, the bishop lays hands on you and makes you a deacon. So this guy was stuck at being a deacon because he wasn’t worthy. Why wasn’t he worthy? He couldn’t stop smoking.

As you may know, the big no-nos in the Mormon church are: you can’t smoke, you can’t take any kind of illegal drugs and you can’t drink coffee. So this guy was trying—I don’t know if you’ve ever been a smoker, but it’s a hard thing to get off your back. And I would give this guy priesthood blessings, I would pray with him, I would fast with him, I’d do all this and he was stuck. He was going to end up being like the Mormon Church’s only 90-year-old deacon because of the merciless quality of Mormonism and the fact that it didn’t really have any power to transform his life.

There were numerous stories like that. And it began to put a crack in my belief in Mormonism because I thought, okay, if this is the true church, which is what they teach, then why, if I’m holding the priesthood—I was a holy Melchizedek priesthood elder—and if I laid hands on a guy to be set free from nicotine, why didn’t that work? Especially when I was doing it like every week.

Questioning Faith and Finding Truth

INTERVIEWER: Especially because you had been in the occult before and you had some of the power of the occult. And so it’s like you understood that there was power somewhere and that Lucifer could give you power and that you thought you were in the true church and you found none of this power. So I understand, but what did you do? Because you said it started to question your whole world for you. Like, how did that develop over time?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, yeah. And okay, leaving on that, I ended up having to move out of Milwaukee because at that time, my wife wanted to go to nursing school, and there was a nursing school in Dubuque that was good. And so I was without a job and I had some time on my hands, and I was trying to find work, and I was plugged into the local Mormon church in Dubuque, the ward there. But of course, I was no longer an elder’s prison.

And I saw this thing in the local penny advertiser that said, oh, there’s going to be a prophecy seminar at this park. Oh, well, that’s good. I thought, I can go to this prophecy seminar because it didn’t say what church it was, and I can steal some sheep because I belong to a church that’s being run by a true prophet, you know, whoop dee doo.

And so I went to this thing, and I had never been to a Protestant service, and there was this evangelist up there, and they were talking about the Book of Revelation. And this guy was presenting the gospel in the context of explaining their version of what the Book of Revelation means. So anyway, he was talking about how you’re saved by grace through faith, you know, the basic Christian gospel.

And I kind of raised my hand being, you know, this wiseacre, because they didn’t know I was a Mormon. And you see, Mormons teach that basically there’s only two choices for the true church. Either the Catholics, who claim to have this apostolic succession all the way back to Peter up to the present day, or else Joseph Smith, who was supposedly given this mandate in the year 1830 by the Angel Moroni and by John the Baptist and whatever. And because they said that all the Protestant churches were split off of the Catholic Church, and so therefore they had no authority. And so either you got to be a Catholic or you got to be a Mormon.

And so I raised this point with this guy, and he says to me, “Where do you get the idea that you need to be baptized in order to be saved? It says in Acts 16:31, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, now shall be saved, and thy house.'” And that was the Bible verse that hit me, you know, because I’d already read the whole King James Bible because the Mormons used the King James Bible.

I read the Bible through five times as a Mormon, but I had never seen that verse. Like, you know, how Bible verses leap out at you. And this verse went through my magic Mormon underwear like a bullet through a sheet of tissue paper. And I went home and I was trembling and I prayed and I fasted because that’s what Mormons are supposed to do if you run into a spiritual dilemma.

It says right in Doctrine and Covenants, which is one of the Mormon scriptures. Of the four. They have four scriptures. They have the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. And I prayed and I fasted. And supposedly, if you do that, if what you’re thinking of is true, you get a burning in your bosom. And if it’s not true, the Holy Spirit will send you a stupor of mind and you will forget what you’re even talking about.

So I didn’t get either one. And so I did bring to mind the comic books that I had gotten five years earlier or more by this time. And I went and dug them out because I remember in the back was how to be a Christian. And so I got down at the foot of my bed, I knelt, I took off my magic Mormon underwear because I didn’t want any static on the line when I talked to God. And I prayed the prayers in the back of that comic book. And I got born again. And that was the beginning of my journey as a true Christian.

So I got saved partly through the Assemblies of God, but then I was going to study to be a minister. And there were stipulations that if you were either you or your wife were divorced and my wife was a divorcee, you can’t be a minister at that time. That was the rule in the assembly. So I went over to the Foursquare Church, which is a similar charismatic church. And there the pastor and his wife did deliverance on me. I got set free from a whole legion of demons.

Breaking the Covenant with Darkness

INTERVIEWER: I’m sure, especially with the things you were involved in, a lot of which we didn’t touch on because they’re quite graphic. And, you know, for the sake of time, we can’t talk about everything that you’ve gone through because you have so much. There’s something that you talked about. Obviously we talked about you selling your soul. Now you accepted Jesus. I remember you talking about how the covenant or the deal that you made with the devil was for seven years. So what happened with that?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, thankfully, okay, that was made in 1979. And I got saved in 1984. And when I got saved, that wiped out that stupid covenant. It took the power of the devil off of me because I became a child of God. And of course, I renounced that covenant.

Part of, you know, I mean, I know there’s different ways that people do deliverance, and I know how familiar you are with deliverance. But, you know, one of the things that we encourage people to do and I was encouraged to do was like, I went through and I renounced all of my Masonic oaths. I renounced all the oaths and covenants I took in the Mormon Church, I renounced the baptismal vows of the Catholic Church, and I renounced that oath that I took to the devil in that park in Glen Ellyn and nailed it all to the cross.

Speaking Out Against Freemasonry

INTERVIEWER: So you became a Christian before the seven years had actually passed. And who knows what would have happened? If that didn’t work, I guess we’re never going to know. But there’s something else that I would not be a good interviewer if I didn’t ask you, because Freemasonry is kind of a secret thing. You can’t talk about it. You already mentioned that you’re breaking these rules. How were you able to be so open against Freemasonry as a former Mason? Do you have any repercussions? Did that ever happen to you? Can you explain that?

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Yeah, you could say that. I have had so many attempts on my life, I can’t even begin to tell you. But what partially helped me was the fact. And I’ll just insert this little tale, since you say you like stories.

When I moved to Dubuque, I wanted to go and reconnect with the Masonic Lodge in Dubuque. And so I went to the—and this was right after, literally about a week after I got born again. The Masonic Lodge had what they called a high 12 luncheon, which was on Friday noon. And everybody was welcome. And I went to this luncheon. It was like a free meal.

And I got in there, and it’s down in the basement of this big lodge thing downtown Dubuque. And as I was eating, I could feel this darkness. I’ve been in Masonic lodges hundreds of times, but because now I had the Holy Spirit within me, I could feel something dark and evil and oppressive just pushing down on me. And I ate the lunch and I even felt like this voice in my head saying, “My son, get out of here.” So I even skipped dessert, which for me was a big deal back then.

And I went outside, and this was in June, into the bright June sunshine. And I felt like this incredible weight was off me. So I went home, and I was led to go to Ezekiel chapter eight. Let me just read it, because it’s amazing how this dovetailed with the Masonic Lodge.

Okay, here we are. I’m not going to read it all. It’s kind of long. But he says he’s digging through the wall and he says, you know. And this is in verse 13 of chapter 8. He said to me, this angel or whatever, “Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do,” meaning the Elders of Israel. “And he brought me to the gate of the Lord’s house, which is toward the north. And behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.” Now, Tammuz is a false, slain and risen God who is part of the Masonic pantheon.

“Then said unto him, hast thou seen this, O Son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.” And he brought—now this is critical, verse 16—”And he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, the door of the Temple of the Lord. Between the porch and the altar were about 25 men with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east. And they worshiped the sun toward the east.”

Now, why is that important? Well, Masonic temples are required to face east. The Worshipful Master is in the east, and he is a symbol of the sun. And all the devotions of the Masonic Lodge face east. That means, theoretically, they ever have the back to the Ark of the Covenant. They have their back to the truth.

And there’s a thing in Masonic ritual when they have a ritual you go through whenever they open the Lodge. You know, every week they open the Lodge and they go around when they come to the Worshipful Master, it says, “As the sun rises in the east to rule and govern the day, so also rises the Worshipful Master in the east to rule and govern the Lodge.” And then the Master stands up and he knocks up the Lodge, which means he raps the gavel three times.

And the symbolism was so vivid when I saw that scripture, because I had been immersed in Masonry for nine years, I knew it backwards and forwards. And I realized this was an indictment of the Masonic Lodge. And within a week, I sent a letter to the Masonic Lodge and asked to have my name taken off the roll.

INTERVIEWER: There’s so much and for the sake of time, I know you have to go, so we’ll have to wrap it up. It’s unfortunate because there’s so many things that we could talk about, but you wrote books, you have a bunch of stuff. If people want more detailed things, they can go there, they can find you. I’ll put all the links on the website. If you go in the description of this episode, you’ll be able to find all of that. But to end Bill, I want to ask you and give you this opportunity to give a message and usually I only ask people one, but for you, I wanted to make it a little bit different because you’ve been in so many different things. You were a Satanist, a Freemason and a Mormon. So if you had a message to give to each one of these people that are listening today, what would it be?

Warnings About Spiritual Deception

DR. WILLIAM SCHNOEBELEN: Well, I mean, let me start with witches. Satanists. I mean those people are worshiping power. They think they are trying to become one with nature, but the power they’re trying to tap is the power of the devil. And I know a lot of these people, even some Satanists, will say we don’t believe in the devil except as an archetype, as a symbol. But they’re whistling in the dark. They’re making a grave mistake that can cost them their souls.

It doesn’t matter what you think you believe—the truth with a capital T is out there and Yeshua is the way, the truth and the life. And if you reject him as most witches and Satanists do, then your fate is not good. It’s not that God is this big meanie in the sky who’s going to send you to hell. It’s your decision to ignore Christ or to mock Christ that is going to cost you an eternity in a very dark place and you don’t want to do that.

I would share that same message with Masons. Again, a lot of Masons are Christians. But the problem is, you know, like Elijah said to the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18, “How long halt ye between two opinions? If Baal is God, serve him. But if the Lord is God serve him.” The Mason might be the nicest person you might imagine, but he’s knelt at the altar of Baal. He may have one knee on the altar of Christ and one knee on the altar of Baal. And these two things are going to drift apart.

In my experience, I’ve been ministering to Freemasons since 1988, and it’s very hard for a Christian Mason to keep his testimony strong. The Masonic lies will just suck all the spiritual fire off of you. So you need to get out of it, because the devil is after you. And even though it might seem good at the time, you know, there’s a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.

The Dangers of Mormonism

I’d say almost the same thing to the Mormons, except the problem is with the Mormons, you’re totally worshiping a false God. You’re totally worshiping a false Jesus, you’re following a plan of salvation which is absolutely false, and you’re in a very dark place. Mormonism is honestly darker than Masonry, in my humble opinion.

So if you’re in the Mormon Church, you probably don’t feel that evil. But the men at the top of the Mormon Church are devil worshipers. And that spiritual power is percolating downward into you and into your family because of the way headship authority works in the world.

So again, you need to get out of the Mormon Church. You need to find a good Christian church that really believes in the Bible and renounce it. Renounce your baptism, and if you’ve been to the temple, renounce your temple vows and then go and get baptized by a Christian pastor, and you’ll be hopefully on your way.

All three of those paths ultimately will end in the same place, even though the one seemed much darker than the other two. But the devil disguises himself as an angel of light, Paul tells us, so that he can deceive us. So that’s what I would say. Trust in Yeshua, Jesus Christ, don’t trust in Joseph Smith, don’t trust in the false Christ of Masonry, who is called Highland Beasts, and certainly don’t trust in Satan.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Almost False podcast. Unfortunately, Bill is a very busy man and I only had a couple hours with him, which is woefully insufficient to talk about everything that he’s experienced. I’m trying to get him on the show again. If that happens, I’ll leave a link in the description. But whether it happens or not, I highly encourage you to go check out his content. If you want more in-depth knowledge about what he said, then his books are the best place to go. You can find him by clicking the guest info link in the description of this episode. Thank you again for listening. Hope you learned something. Have a good one. Stay blessed.

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