From Witch to Mason to Mormon Elder: How One Bible Verse Set Bill Schnoebelen Free

by Kevin S. Pirnie

Somewhere between a mailbox in Milwaukee and a bank in San Francisco, a woman nobody can name picked up a check. It was made out to the Church of Satan. It was a membership renewal. She could have stamped it and moved on. Instead, she turned it over and wrote eight words on the back: “I’ll be praying for you in Jesus’ name.”

The man who wrote that check had been a witch high priest. He was a member of the Church of Satan. He was a Master Mason on his way to the top of the Lodge. Before long he would be an elder in the Mormon Church. When the canceled check came back and he read that little note, he laughed at it.

Within twenty-four hours, his world began to come apart. Within a few years, he was on his knees at the foot of his bed, praying to receive Jesus Christ.

His name is Bill Schnoebelen, and his story is one you need to hear. Not because it is strange, although it is. You need to hear it because the doors he walked through are still standing open today, and some of them are in your town, with good men and kind families walking through them every week.

Watch the Interview

In this conversation on the Almost False Podcast, Bill tells how a priest steered him toward the occult, how a Druid leader pointed him to the Masonic Lodge and the Mormon temple, and how one verse of Scripture broke through all of it.

How the Camel Gets Into the Tent

Bill did not start out chasing darkness. He started out wanting to be a priest. In 1968, at a small seminary college in Iowa, he was a young man who wanted to be like Jesus. That is a good desire. Every Christian should want that.

But a teacher he trusted took him aside and told him that if he wanted to be like Christ, he needed to do what Christ supposedly did: travel east, study with gurus and magicians, and learn the occult. That is not in your Bible. It is not in anybody’s Bible. But it came from a man in a collar, and in 1968 a young seminarian did not question a man in a collar.

Bill describes what happened next with an old desert picture. The camel sticks his nose in the tent. It is just his nose, so you let it go. Then comes the head, then the neck, and before you know it, the whole camel is inside and you are the one sleeping outside.

First it was a book about “white” witchcraft that claimed witches were harmless nature lovers. Then initiation into a coven. Then a book that said Satan was just a symbol you could draw power from. Then membership in the Church of Satan. Every step felt small. Every step was one inch past the last one.

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”
2 Corinthians 11:14

Here is something worth understanding. The devil almost never walks up and says, “Follow me to destruction.” He says, “Here is a little more light. Here is a deeper truth. Here is a secret the ordinary Christians do not know.” He did it in the garden with Eve, and he has not changed his sales pitch since. The promise is always the same: you will know what God is holding back from you.

“Long in Darkness and Now Seeking Light”

A Druid leader Bill trained under gave him two pieces of advice. If you want to understand this power, join the Masonic Lodge. And if you ever get into trouble, go hide in the Mormon Church. Bill did both.

When he petitioned the Lodge, they asked if he believed in God. He said yes. Nobody asked which God. That detail matters more than it seems.

Then came the first degree, called Entered Apprentice. Bill describes it the same way the published ritual books of American Masonry have described it for more than 150 years. The candidate is partly undressed, blindfolded, with a rope around his neck. He is led to the door of the Lodge, and his guide announces him as one who has been long in darkness and now seeks to be brought to light.

Stop right there and think about that sentence.

Picture a deacon from a Bible-believing church standing at that door. He was saved at a revival when he was twelve. He has taught Sunday school for twenty years. He has led people to Christ. And now he lets another man say, on his behalf, that he has been in darkness and needs the Lodge to give him light.

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
John 8:12

A Christian is not in darkness. The Bible says God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). If Jesus has already given you the light of life, then what light is the Lodge offering? And where does it come from?

An Oath No Christian Should Take

Kneeling at the altar, still blindfolded, the candidate swears to keep the secrets of the degree. In the traditional ritual, he agrees that if he ever reveals them, he deserves to have his throat cut across and his tongue torn out by the roots. Some Grand Lodges have softened or dropped that language over the years, but it has been part of the American ritual for generations, and Bill took it in 1975.

Now, a Mason will tell you, “Nobody means that literally. It is symbolic.” Friend, that makes it worse, not better. Jesus did not say, “Be careful with your oaths.” He said something much stronger:

“But I say unto you, Swear not at all… But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
Matthew 5:34, 37

The Old Testament law even made provision for a man who swore rashly without knowing what he was promising (Leviticus 5:4). He was guilty, and he had to confess it. Think about that. The candidate swears to keep secrets before he knows what they are. He binds his conscience to something he cannot see, while blindfolded, with a rope around his neck. A believer’s conscience belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word. It is not ours to hand over to any man, any Lodge, or any ritual.

And think about this. Jesus told the high priest, “I spake openly to the world… and in secret have I said nothing” (John 18:20). The gospel is not a secret. It is shouted from rooftops. Any system that says the deepest truth is only for the initiated has already parted ways with the Christ who preached in the open air.

Is the Lodge Really “Just a Fraternity”?

Most men join the Lodge for ordinary reasons. Their father was a member. Their granddad was a member. It was good for business. Bill says the men in his Lodge were mostly in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, and some of them snored through the ritual and then played cards afterward. They were not dark wizards. They were somebody’s grandpa.

But here is the question. What makes something a religion? Bill uses a simple test. Does it have a belief in a deity? Does it express that belief through ritual? Does it teach a system of morality? The Lodge has all three. It has an altar. It has prayers. It has a chaplain. It has a sacred book on the altar. It has a drama of death and raising in the third degree, where the candidate plays the part of Hiram Abiff, who is struck down and raised again.

And it has a teaching about how a man reaches heaven. In the first degree, the candidate receives a white lambskin apron. The traditional lecture says it reminds him of the purity of life and conduct needed to gain admission into the “Celestial Lodge above.” Not a word about the blood of Christ. Not a word about grace.

Here is the real rub. In most Lodges, prayers are offered to the “Great Architect of the Universe,” and they are usually offered without the name of Jesus so that men of every faith can say amen together. A Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, and a deist can all kneel at the same altar because the name that divides them has been left outside the door.

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Acts 4:12

In 1993, the Southern Baptist Convention studied Freemasonry and concluded that many of its tenets and teachings are not compatible with Christianity. That was not a fringe group of critics. That was the largest Protestant denomination in America looking hard at the question.

Read Their Own Books

Bill encourages people not to take his word for it but to read what Masonry’s own leading writers taught. Albert Pike, who led the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, wrote Morals and Dogma, a massive book that roams through the pagan mysteries, the Kabbalah, and ancient religions, treating them as streams of the same hidden wisdom. Manly P. Hall, a 33rd degree Mason and one of the best-known occult writers of the twentieth century, wrote in The Lost Keys of Freemasonry that the Master Mason holds “the seething energies of Lucifer” in his hands.

Most Masons have never read a page of either book. That is exactly the point. You can sit on a bench in the Lodge for forty years and never know what the men at the top of your own tradition believed.

The Ladder Beyond the Blue Lodge

For readers who have always wondered what “33rd degree” means, here is how it works in America. Every Mason begins in the Blue Lodge with three degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. From there a man may climb the York Rite, which ends in the Knights Templar, or the Scottish Rite, which confers degrees four through thirty-two. The 32nd degree is called Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. The 33rd is an honor given by invitation to a select few.

Bill tells how he went up to men who had been in the Scottish Rite for decades and asked a simple question: “I am a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. So what is the Royal Secret?” They told him they did not know.

Think about that. A man can climb to the 32nd degree and still not know what he has been given. You would not sign a mortgage without reading it. Why would anyone sign away his soul’s allegiance on those terms?

The Mason Who Built a Temple

Now we come to the part of Bill’s story that many people have never heard.

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, was made a Mason in Nauvoo, Illinois, in March of 1842. About seven weeks later, in May of 1842, he introduced the temple endowment ceremony. Historians, including Latter-day Saint historians, openly acknowledge the connection in timing.

Bill went through the endowment in the Salt Lake Temple in the early 1980s, holding the Melchizedek priesthood as an elder. He describes the similarities he saw after years in the Lodge: secret signs, tokens, and handshakes given at different levels; oaths sealed by gestures across the throat, just like the Entered Apprentice penalty; and at the veil, an embrace called the five points of fellowship, the very same posture used in the Masonic third degree.

In fairness, the LDS Church removed the penalty gestures and the five points of fellowship from the endowment in 1990. But the question every honest seeker should ask is simple. If this ceremony was restored by revelation from heaven, why did it arrive seven weeks after its founder learned the secret work of the Lodge? And why has “revealed” ritual needed revising?

A Different God, a Different Jesus, a Different Gospel

Beyond the ritual, the deeper issue is doctrine. Mormon scripture teaches that God the Father “has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22). Joseph Smith taught in 1844 that God was once a man who became God. A well-known couplet among Latter-day Saints says it this way: as man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become.

The Bible could not be clearer:

“Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.”
Isaiah 43:10

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
John 4:24

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.”
Numbers 23:19

And when it comes to salvation, the Book of Mormon says we are saved by grace “after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). The Bible says:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9

Those two statements cannot both be true. One puts the weight on Christ. The other puts the weight back on you.

Side by Side: The Bible, the Lodge, and the Temple

The Ninety-Year-Old Deacon

Bill does not say everything about his time as a Latter-day Saint was bad. He says the Mormons he knew were very good at caring for their people. If a neighbor needed a sidewalk shoveled, somebody showed up with a shovel. Christians could learn from that.

But there was one man he could not forget. He was an older fellow, sweet as could be, with a wife and family. He was still a deacon, the rank normally given to twelve-year-old boys, because he could not quit smoking and so was never counted worthy to advance. Bill laid hands on him and gave him priesthood blessings. He prayed with him. He fasted with him. Week after week. Nothing changed.

Bill said the man was on track to be the church’s only ninety-year-old deacon. And that is where the crack in Bill’s faith began. If this was the one true church, and he held the true priesthood, where was the power?

Here is the difference between religion and redemption. Religion hands you a ladder and says, “Climb until you are worthy.” The gospel tells you that you will never be worthy, and then it tells you that Jesus was worthy in your place. The law can show a man his sin like a mirror shows a dirty face, but you cannot wash your face with a mirror. Only the blood of Christ can wash it.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
2 Corinthians 5:17

One Verse Like a Bullet

In 1984, out of work and living in Dubuque, Bill saw an ad for a prophecy seminar in a park. He went with a plan. He was going to steal a few sheep for the Mormon Church. He had never been to a Protestant meeting in his life.

When the evangelist preached salvation by grace through faith, Bill raised his hand to argue. He said you had to be baptized by true authority to be saved. The preacher did not debate him. He simply opened his Bible and read:

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
Acts 16:31

Bill had read the King James Bible cover to cover five times as a Mormon. He had never really seen that verse. He said it went through him like a bullet through wet tissue paper.

That is how God’s Word works. Hebrews 4:12 says it is “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.” You can read a verse fifty times, and on the fifty-first, the Holy Spirit takes it and drives it straight into your heart.

Notice how simple that verse is. The Philippian jailer did not get a ladder of degrees. He did not get a secret handshake or a new name at a veil. He asked, “What must I do to be saved?” and Paul gave him one word: believe. Faith is not the price we pay for salvation. Faith is the empty hand that receives a gift already paid for.

Bill went home trembling. He remembered two little gospel tracts in comic book form that a couple of teenagers had given him years before, which he had tossed in a closet. He dug them out, knelt at the foot of his bed, and prayed the simple prayer printed in the back. Eight words on the back of a check. Two forgotten tracts in a closet. One verse read aloud in a park. God used every one of them.

Never think your small witness is wasted. That woman at the bank never knew what happened. You may not know either. But God keeps the books.

Backs to the Temple, Faces to the East

A week or so after he was saved, Bill went back to a Masonic Lodge in Dubuque for a free Friday lunch. He had been in Lodges hundreds of times. But now, with the Holy Spirit living in him, he said he felt a heaviness pressing down on him. He left before dessert, walked out into the June sunshine, and felt the weight lift.

That afternoon he found himself reading Ezekiel 8. In that chapter, God shows the prophet what the elders of Israel are doing in secret:

“Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not.”
Ezekiel 8:12

“And, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.”
Ezekiel 8:16

Notice who these men were. They were not pagans. They were elders. They were leaders among God’s own people, doing in private what they would never do in public. And notice how they stood: backs to the house of God, faces toward the rising sun.

Bill knew the Lodge from the inside. In Masonic ritual, the Worshipful Master sits in the east. When the Lodge opens, the ritual declares that as the sun rises in the east to rule and govern the day, so rises the Worshipful Master in the east to rule and govern the Lodge. Bill read Ezekiel 8 and saw himself in it. Within a week, he wrote a letter asking to have his name removed from the rolls.

Here is the lesson for all of us, Mason or not. Whatever you do in the chambers of your imagery, the places nobody sees, God sees. And whatever you turn your face toward, you have turned your back on something else. You cannot face both directions at once.

Standing With One Foot on the Dock

If you have ever stood with one foot on a dock and the other in a rowboat, you know how that story ends. For a moment it works. You feel balanced. Then the boat starts to drift, and you have about two seconds to decide which way you are going, or the lake is going to decide for you.

Bill closed the interview with Elijah’s challenge on Mount Carmel:

“How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.”
1 Kings 18:21

The word “halt” means to limp. Israel was limping back and forth, one step toward the Lord, one step toward Baal, and they thought they were keeping their balance. Elijah told them the truth. You are not balanced. You are crippled.

Bill said that in all his years of ministering to Masons, he has found it very hard for a Christian in the Lodge to keep his spiritual fire burning. One knee at the altar of Christ and one knee at another altar will eventually drift apart.

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 14:12

If You Want Out, Here Is the Door

When the gospel came to Ephesus, people who had practiced magic did something remarkable. “Many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men” (Acts 19:18-19). They made a clean break, in public, with no loose ends.

Bill did the same. He renounced his Masonic oaths, his temple covenants, and the oath he swore in a park outside Chicago, and he nailed them all to the cross. If God is speaking to you, here are some simple steps:

1. Come to Christ first. Leaving a Lodge or a church will not save you. Only Jesus saves. Confess your sin, trust Him alone, and receive Him as your Lord and Savior.
2. Confess and renounce by name. Tell God plainly that you reject every oath, covenant, and vow you made that dishonored Him, and ask Him to cleanse you (1 John 1:9).
3. Make a clean break. If you are a Mason, send a written request to be removed from membership. If you are a Latter-day Saint who has come to faith in the biblical Jesus, you may request to have your name removed from church records.
4. Clear out the house. Aprons, rings, ritual books, garments, and other items tied to those oaths can go, just as the Ephesians’ books did.
5. Find a Bible-believing church. Get baptized as a believer, sit under faithful preaching, and let a pastor walk with you.
6. Love those you leave behind. Your father, your brother, your friends in the ward or the Lodge are not your enemies. Pray for them the way one unknown woman prayed for Bill.

A Final Word From a Pastor’s Heart

Bill spent more than fifteen years chasing light through covens, Lodges, and temples. He climbed higher than almost anybody. He learned secrets few men ever hear. And at the end of all that searching, the thing that set him free was a verse any child in Vacation Bible School could quote.

That is the beauty of the gospel. It is too deep for the wisest man to exhaust and simple enough for a child to receive. You do not need a blindfold removed by a Worshipful Master. You do not need a whispered name through a veil. You need Jesus. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

If you have been standing with one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat, the boat is already drifting. Today is a good day to choose. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. It was true for a Philippian jailer. It was true for a witch, a Mason, and a Mormon elder named Bill. And it is true for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Christian be a Freemason?

Many sincere Christians belong to the Lodge, but the Lodge asks a believer to accept that he is “long in darkness,” to swear oaths Jesus forbade, and to pray at an altar where the name of Jesus is usually left out. For those reasons, many Christian leaders and denominations have concluded that Lodge membership is not compatible with following Christ.

Is Freemasonry a religion?

Masons often say it is not. But the Lodge has an altar, prayers, a chaplain, sacred ritual, a teaching about entering the “Celestial Lodge above,” and a moral system. By any common definition, those are marks of a religion.

What does 33rd degree Mason mean?

In American Masonry, a man completes three Blue Lodge degrees and may continue through the Scottish Rite to the 32nd degree. The 33rd degree is an honorary degree given by invitation for service to the order.

Why does the Mormon temple ceremony resemble Masonic ritual?

Joseph Smith became a Mason in March 1842 and introduced the temple endowment in May 1842. The original ceremony included signs, tokens, penalty gestures, and the five points of fellowship, all of which closely parallel Masonic ritual. Some of these elements were removed in 1990.

How do I leave the Masonic Lodge?

Begin by settling your relationship with Christ, then renounce the oaths before God, send a written request to your Lodge secretary asking to be removed from membership, and get connected with a Bible-teaching church for support.

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