- The following is an excerpt from the
government's side of the dollar bill story is presented at: http://www.bep.treas.gov/nptemp.cfm?id=28
-
-
- "The Great Seal was first used on
the reverse of the one-dollar Federal Reserve note in 1935. The Department
of State is the official keeper of the Seal. They believe that the most
accurate explanation of a pyramid on the Great Seal is that it symbolizes
strength and durability. The unfinished pyramid means that the United States
will always grow, improve and build. In addition, the "All-Seeing
Eye" located above the pyramid suggests the importance of divine guidance
in favor of the American cause.
-
- The inscription ANNUIT COEPTIS translates
as "He (God) has favored our undertakings," and refers to the
many instances of Divine Providence during our Government's formation.
In addition, the inscription NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM translates as "A
new order of the ages," and signifies a new American era."
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- _______________
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- What follows is from the Cecil Adams
("The Straight Dope") column on the subject. I got it from:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/ However, since he only keeps the
last 52 weeks on the Web, it's no longer there.
-
-
- "As you know if you've read the
fine print, what you see on the back of a dollar bill is the great seal
of the U.S., established by Congress on June 20, 1782. The official interpretation
is that the pyramid represents strength and durability. It's incomplete
because so is the work of building the nation. The eye in the triangle
is the all-seeing eye of providence.
-
- What makes the story interesting is that
the eye and pyramid have links to Freemasonry. The eye, for example, is
said to be a symbol of the Great Architect of the Universe, i.e., God.
The symbolic significance of the pyramid and the eye were well known to
educated folk of the 18th century, and one may argue that the Masons and
the designers of the seal were merely drawing on the same symbolic sources.
But what if ... one pauses pregnantly ... there's more to it?
-
- Due to incomplete records, nobody knows
exactly how many of the founding fathers were Masons. But there were quite
a few, including George Washington, Ben Franklin, and possibly Thomas Jefferson.
Franklin and Jefferson were on the committee assigned to design the great
seal. This group produced a design calling for, among other things, an
all-seeing eye. While the eye was cool, the design otherwise pretty much
stank, and the job wound up getting dumped on the secretary of the Congress,
Charles Thomson. Thomson enlisted the aid of Philadelphian William Barton.
The two cooked up the scheme we have today, incorporating the all-seeing
eye plus a pyramid, because everybody liked the idea of Egyptian symbolism.
-
- It's not known if Barton and Thomson
were Masons, and judging from surviving correspondence there's no indication
a Masonic connection crossed anybody's mind at the time. But it's crossed
lots of minds since....Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth, proposed
a wacky but basically genial interpretation that works in Solomon's Seal
and the Pythagorean tetrakys and Egyptian folklore. Upshot: the seal is
a symbolical representation of democracy. Fine as far as it goes, but lacking
the essential element of paranoia. For this we turn to the religious right,
which sees the eye and pyramid as evidence of a Masonic plot (by George
Washington!) to destroy Christianity."
-
- _____________
-
- Below is an excerpt from a "Skeptic
Magazine" article by Tim Callahan. It's still posted at: http://www.netizen.org/arc-hive/NWO_0008.TXT
-
-
- "The symbol in question is the pyramid
with an eye on the back of the dollar bill. Below it is the Latin inscription
Novus Ordo Seculorum, which translates as "New World Order."
Or does it? What we have here is a compound error made up of bad Latin,
bad spelling, and poor history. Those readers who, like myself, took some
Latin in high school, might remember that the suffix "orum" is
the genitive plural for nouns in the second declension. Seculorum would
have to be plural and mean "of the worlds," which seems a rather
clumsy phrasing. It certainly would be if in fact the word in question
was "seculorum." Actually...the millenarian crowd has added the
letter "u" between the "c" and the "l" of
the word printed on the dollar, which is seclorum or "of the ages."
Thus, far from saying "New World Order," Novus Ordo Seclorum
reads "New Order of the Ages." Since this symbol and motto are
on the back of our country's Great Seal and were put there when the nation
was being founded, they represent the revolutionary sentiment that by dispensing
with kings, whose rule was autocratic and based on force, and replacing
that system with a republic based on reason, balance of powers, and self
rule, the founders of our nation were creating a new order for the ages."
-
- _____________
-
- Finally, if you point your browser to
http://www.state.gov/www/publications/great_seal.pdf you'll find an entire
PDF pamphlet with an in-depth treatment of the historical development of
the seal.
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