Saddleback Laguna
Masonic Lodge No. 672

Cultural references

There are many books, plays, movies, Television shows, etc. that include references to Freemasonry. Those listed below are those where Freemasonry figures prominently. There are many books and websites dedicated to giving a more complete list of cultural references to Freemasonry.

• Freemason J. Rudyard Kipling used Masonic symbols and characters in his works, most notably The Man Who Would Be King, in which two adventurers are taken to be Masonic representatives of Alexander the Great. This story was adapted and filmed by John Huston, in 1975.

• Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace contains many references to Freemasonry. When Pierre Bezhukov, one of the main characters, becomes a Freemason his initiation (which follows a European form) is described.

• The plot of Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute") contains several references to Masonic ideals and ceremonies. Mozart and his librettist Emanuel Schikaneder were both members of Lodge of the Nine Muses, a Masonic Lodge.
   
• Freemasons feature heavily in Robert Shea's and Robert Anton Wilson's satire, The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

• John Cleese, and other cast members, satirize Freemasons in the "How to recognise a Freemason" and "Architect's Sketch" sketches of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

• The Freemasons are satirized in an episode of The Simpsons, titled "Homer the Great", as The Ancient Society of Stonecutters, a secret organisation that controls everything from the British Crown to the Academy Awards.

• Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco deals with Masonic themes.

• The plot of the 2004 movie National Treasure revolves heavily around the Freemasons and is somewhat unusual in that it depicts them in a benign light.

• In The Baron in the Trees Italian writer Italo Calvino includes Masonic Lodges branching out into the lands of Ombrosa with the protagonist of the novel, Cosimo di Rondo, mysteriously and supposedly involved with them.

• Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris use Freemasonry in their series The Adept, most notably in The Adept Book Two: The Lodge of the Lynx, and in Kurtz's American Revolution historical novel Two Crowns for America, which links Freemasonry and Jacobitism.

• Brad Meltzer discusses Freemasonry in his 2006 novel, The Book of Fate.

• In the song Secret Handshakes on The Ataris' 2007 album Welcome The Night, Kris Roe talks of his father's involvement with the Freemasons.