THE EYE IN THE PYRAMID

By: S. Brent Morris, P.M.

In, at times, a strongly worded article Dr. S.
Brent Morris, a member and Past Master of 
Patmos Lodge #70, Ellicott City, Maryland, has
"set the record straight" on the myth that the 
Great Seal of the United States represents a
Masonic symbol. The facts are clearly presented,
together with several examples of the use of the
"All Seeing Eye" prior to any known Masonic 
use. This straightforward article is being pre-
sented as a STB so that Freemasons may have an 
answer when the question is asked "Is the Seal of 
the United States a Masonic symbol? "

Historians must be cautious about many well-
known "facts." George Washington chopped 
down a cherry tree when a boy and confessed 
the deed to his father. Abner Doubleday invent-
ed the game of baseball. Freemasons inserted 
some of their emblems (chief among them the 
eye in the pyramid) into the reverse of the Great 
Seal of the United States. These historical 
"facts" are widely popular, commonly accepted, 
and equally false.

The eye in the pyramid (emblazoned on the 
dollar bill, no less) is often cited as "evidence" 
that sinister conspiracies abound which will 
impose a "New World Order" on an unsuspect-
ing populace. Depending on whom you hear it 
from, the Masons are planning the takeover 
themselves, or are working in concert with 
European bankers, or are leading (or perhaps 
being led by) the Illuminati (whoever they are). 
The notion of a world-wide Masonic conspiracy 
would be laughable, if it weren't being repeated 
with such earnest gullibility by conspiracists like 
Pat Robertson.

Sadly, Masons are sometimes counted among 
the gullible who repeat the tall tale of the eye in 
the pyramid, often with a touch of pride. They 
may be guilty of nothing worse than innocently 
puffing the importance of their fraternity (as 
well as themselves), but they're guilty nonethe-
less. The time has come to state the truth plain-
ly and simply!

The Great Seal of the United States is not a 
Masonic emblem, nor does it contain hidden 
Masonic symbols.

The details are there for anyone to check, 
who's willing to rely on historical fact, rather 
than hysterical fiction.

 Benjamin Franklin was the only Mason on 
the first design committee, and his sugges-
tions had no Masonic content.

 None of the final designers of the seal were 
Masons.

 The interpretation of the eye on the seal is 
subtly different from the interpretation used 
by Masons.

 The eye in the pyramid is not nor has it ever 
been a Masonic symbol.

THE FIRST COMMITTEE

On Independence Day, 1776 a committee was 
created to design a seal for the new American 
nation. The committee's members were 
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jetferson, and John 
Adams, with Pierre Du Simitiere as artist and 
consultant.' Of the four men involved, only 
Benjamin Franklin was a Mason, and he con-
tributed nothing of a Masonic nature to the com-
mittee's proposed design for a seal.

Du Simitiere, the committee's consultant and a 
non-Mason, contributed several major design 
features that made their way into the ultimate 
design of the seal: 'the shield, E Pluribus Unum, 
MDCCLXXVI, and the eye of providence in a 
triangle."' The eye of providence on the seal 
thus can be traced, not to the Masons, but to a 
non-Mason consultant to the committee.

"The single eye was a well-established artistic 
convention for an 'omniscient Ubiquitous 
Deity' in the medallic art of the Renaissance. Du 
Simitiere, who suggested using the symbol, col-
lected art books and was lamiliar with the artis-
tic and ornamental devices used in Renaissance 
art." This was the same cultural iconography
that eventually led Masons to add the all-seeing 
eye to their symbols.

THE SECOND AND THIRD COMMITTEES

Congress declined the first committees sugges-
tions as well as those of its 1780 committee. 
Francis Hopkinson, consultant to the second 
committee, had several ideas that eventually 
made it into the seal: "white and red stripes with-
in a blue background for the shield, a radiant 
constellation of thirteen stars, and an olive 
branch."4 Hopkinson's greatest contribution to 
the current seal came from his layout of a 1778 
50-dollar colonial note in which he used an 
unfinished pyramid in the design. The third and 
last seal committee of 1782 produced a design 
that finally satisfied Congress. Charles 
Thomson, Secretary of Congress, and William 
Barton, artist and consultant, borrowed from 
earlier designs and sketched what at length 
became the United States Seal.

The misinterpretation of the seal as a Masonic 
emblem may have been first introduced a cen-
tury later in 1884. Harvard Professor Eliot 
Norton wrote that the reverse was 'practically 
incapable of effective treatment; it can hardly, 
(however artistically treated by the designer), 
look otherwise than as a dull emblem of a 
Masonic fraternity.''5

INTERPRETING THE SYMBOL

The "'Remarks and Explanations" of Thomson 
and Barton are the only explanation of the sym-
bols' meaning. Despite what anti-Masons may 
believe, there's no reason to doubt the interpre-
tation accepted by the Congress.

The Pyramid signified Strength and
Duration: The Eye over it & the Moto, allude
to the many signal interpositions of provi-
dence in favor of the American cause. 6

The committees and consultants who designed 
the great Seal of the United States contained 
only one Mason, Benjamin Franklin. The only
possibly Masonic design element among the
very many on the seal is the eye of providence, 
and the interpretation of it by the designers is 
difterent from that used by Masons. The eye on 
the seal represents an active intervention of God 
in the affairs of men, while the Masonic symbol 
stands for a passive awareness by God of the
activities of men.

The first "official" use and definition of the all-
seeing eye as a Masonic symbol seems to have 
come in 1797 with The Freemasons Monitor of 
Thomas Smith Webb-14 years after Congress 
adopted the design tor the seal. Here's how 
Webb explains the symbol.

 "[A]nd although our thoughts, words and
actions, may be hidden from the eyes of man, 
yet that All-Seeing Eye, whom the Sun,
Moon and Stars obey, and under whose 
watchful care even comets perform their stu-
pendous revolutions, pervades the inmost 
recesses of the human heart, and will reward 
us according to our merits." 7

THE EYE IN THE PYRAMID

Besides the subtly different interpretations of 
the symbol, it is notable that Webb did not 
describe the eye as being in a triangle. Jeremy 
Ladd Cross published The True Masonic Chart 
or Hieroglyphic Monitor in 1819, essentially an 
illustrated version of Webb's Monitor. In this 
first "official" depiction of Webb's symbol, 
Cross had illustrator Amos Doolittle depict the 
eye surrounded by a semicircular glory. 8

The all-seeing eye thus appears to be a rather 
recent addition to Masonic symbolism. It is not 
found in any of the Gothic Constitutions, written
from about 1390 to 1730. The eye--sometimes
in a triangle, sometimes in clouds, but nearly 
always surrounded by a glory--was a popular 
Masonic decorative device in the latter half of 
the 18th century. Its use as a design element 
seems to have been an artistic representation of 
the omniscience of God, rather than some gen-
erally accepted Masonic symbol.

Its meaning in all cases, however, was that 
commonly given it by society at large--a 
reminder of the constant presence of God. For 
example, in 1614 the frontispiece of The History 
of the World by Walter Raleigh showed an eye
in a cloud labeled "Providentia" overlooking a 
globe. It has not been suggested that Raleigh' s 
History is a Masonic document despite the use 
of the all-seeing eye .

The eye of Providence was part of the common 
cultural iconography of the 17th and 18th cen-
turies. When placed in a triangle, the eye went 
beyond a general representation of God to a 
strongly Trinitarian statement. It was during this 
period that Masonic ritual and symbolism 
evolved; and it is not surprising that many sym-
bols common to and understood by the general 
society made their way into Masonic cere-
monies. Masons may have preferred the triangle 
because of the frequent use of the number 3 in 
their ceremonies: three degrees, three original 
grand masters, three principal officers, and so 
on. Eventually the all-seeing eye came to be 
used officially by Masons as a symbol for God, 
but this happened towards the end of the eigh-
teenth century, after congress had adopted the 
seal.

A pyramid, whether incomplete or finished, 
however, has never been a Masonic symbol. It 
has no generally accepted symbolic meaning, 
except perhaps permanence or mystery. The 
combining of the eye of providence overlooking 
an unfinished pyramid is a uniquely American, 
not Masonic, icon, and must be interpreted as its 
designers intended. It has no Masonic context.

CONCLUSION

It's hard to know what leads some to see
Masonic conspiracies behind world events, but 
once that hypothesis is accepted, any jot and tit-
tle can be misinterpreted as "evidence." The 
Great Seal of the United States is a classic exam-
ple of such a misinterpretation, and some 
Masons are as guilty of the exaggeration as 
many anti-Masons.
The Great Seal and Masonic symbolism grew 
out of the same cultural milieu. While the all-
seeing eye had been popularized in Masonic 
designs of the late eighteenth century, it did not 
achieve any sort of official recognition until 
Webb's 1797 Monitor. Whatever status the sym-
bol may have had during the design of the Great 
Seal, it was not adopted or approved or endorsed 
by any Grand Lodge.
 
The seal's Eye of Providence and the 
Mason's All Seeing Eye each express Divine 
Omnipotence, but they are parallel uses of a 
shared icon, not a single symbol.

NOTES

' Robert Hieronimus, America's Secret Destiny 
(Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1989), p. 48.

2 Patterson and Dougall in Hieronimus, p. 48.

1 Hieronimus, p. 81.

4 Hieronimus, p. 51.

5 Hieronimus, p. 57.

C. Thomas and W. Barton in Hieronimus, 
p.S4.

7 Thomas Smith Webb, The Freemasons 
Monitor or Illustrations of Masonry (Salem, 
Mass.: Cushing and Appleton, 1821), p. 66.

8 Jeremy Ladd Cross, The True Masonic Chart 
or Hieroglyphic Monitor, 3rd ed. (New Haven, 
Conn.: By the Author, 1824), plate 22.

REFERENCES

Cross, Jeremy Ladd. The True Masonic Chart 
or Hieroglyphic Monitor, 3rd ed. New Haven, 
Conn.: By the Author, 1824.

Hieronimus, Robert. America's Secret Destiny. 
Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1989.

Webb, Thomas Smith. The Freemasons Moni-
tor or Illustrations of Masonry. Salem, Mass.: 
Cushing and Appleton, 1821.
