THE MEANING OF MASONRY
by W.L. WILMSHURST
Foreword
FREEMASONRY has had many great scholars who devoted their
time and talents
to the philosophical exposition of the character of the
Craft, the meaning
of Craft symbols, and the religious aspects of the Fraternity:
Albert
Pike, Robert Freke Gould,
Wilmshurst.
Walter Leslie Wilmshurst (1867-1939) was a mystic with a
practical
knowledge and profound understanding of the religions of
the world. The
Meaning of Masonry discloses the real purpose of modern
Freemasonry and
clearly states the true body of teaching and practice
concerning the
esoteric meanings of Masonic ritual.
Freemasonry is based on the three great principles:
brotherly love,
relief, and truth. Over the years, brotherly love and
relief have been so
stressed that the Craft is in serious danger of becoming
primarily a
social and charitable organization. Truth, the most
difficult principle to
recognize and thus the most difficult to achieve, has
long been neglected.
Wilmshurst carefully places his designs upon the trestle
board to build
his thesis that the alpha and omega of Freemasonry is not
the repetition
of the ritual nor the safeguarding of secrets, but the
regeneration of the
Brethren.
This book implores the reader to learn to see in
Freemasonry something
more than a parochial system enjoining elementary
morality, performing
perfunctory and insignificant rites, and serving as an
agreeable accessory
to social life. The greater system of spiritual doctrine
contained in the
rituals is strongly emphasized.
The Meaning of Masonry was written with a view toward
promoting a deeper
understanding of the Fraternity, and this goal has been
achieved. The
ideals of the Masonic Fraternity have a wide appeal to the
best instincts
of men, and the Craft has become one of the greatest
social institutions
in the world. In this new Aquarian age, when many
individuals and groups
are working in various ways for the eventual restoration
of the mysteries,
an increasing number of aspirants are beginning to
recognize that
Freemasonry may well be the vehicle for this achievement.
We have here a sincere effort by a learned and earnest
Brother to point to
the source of Masonic Light in elegant, and at times
profound, language.
They who look with him may enjoy the same felicity.
The great value of this book is that it was written by
one who sets an
example for all Masters of Lodges. His was a soul filled
with the wonder
of wisdom, strength, and beauty. In these pages, he
whispers the password
to those of us who still clamour
at the gate, enabling us to enter that
inner chamber where we can join the true initiates and
share experiences
now veiled from all but a handful of Brethren.
ALLAN BOUDREAU, PH.D. Curator and Librarian Grand Lodge
of Free and
Accepted July, 1980 Masons of the State of New York
Introduction THE POSITION AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE
MASONIC ORDER
The papers here collected are written solely for members
of the Masonic
Order, constituted under the United Grand Lodge of
England. To all such
they are offered in the best spirit of fraternity and
goodwill and with
the wish to render to the Order some small return for the
profit the
author has received from his association with it
extending over thirty-two
years. They have been written with a view to promoting
the deeper
understanding of the meaning of Masonry; to providing the
explanation of
it that one constantly hears called for and that becomes
all the more
necessary in view of the unprecedented increase of
interest in, and
membership of, the Order at the present day.
The meaning of Masonry, however, is a subject usually
left entirely
unexpounded and that
accordingly remains largely unrealized by its members
save such few as make it their private study; the
authorities of what in
all other respects is an elaborately organized and
admirably controlled
community have hitherto made no provision for explaining
and teaching the
" noble science " which Masonry proclaims
itself to be and was certainly
designed to impart. It seems taken for granted that
reception into the
Order will automatically be accompanied by an ability to
appreciate
forthwith and at its full value all that one there finds.
The contrary is
the case, for Masonry is a veiled and cryptic expression
of the difficult
science of spiritual life, and the understanding of it
calls for special
and of informed guidance on the one hand, and on the
other a genuine and
earnest desire for knowledge and no small capacity for
spiritual
perception on the part of those seeking to be instructed;
and not
infrequen tly
one finds Brethren discontinuing their interest or their
membership because they find that Masonry means nothing
to them and that
no explanation or guidance is vouchsafed them. Were such
instruction
provided, assimilated and responded to, the life of the
Order would be
enormously quickened and deepened and its efficiency as a
means of
Initiation intensified, whilst incidentally the fact
would prove an added
safeguard against the admission into the Order of unsuitable
members--by
which is meant not merely persons who fail to satisfy
conventional
qualifications, but also those who, whilst fitted in
these respects, are
as yet either so intellectually or spiritually unprogressed as to be
incapable of benefiting from Initiation in its true sense
although passing
formally through Initiation rites. Spiritual quality
rather than numbers,
ability to understand the Masonic system and reduce its
implications into
personal experience rather than the perfunctory
conferment of its rites,
are the desiderata of the Craft today.
As a contribution to repairing the absence of explanation
referred to
these papers have been compiled. The first two of them
have often been
read as lectures at Lodge meetings. Many requests that
they should be
printed and made more widely available led to my
expanding their
subject-matter into greater detail than could be used for
occasional
lectures, and accordingly they are here amplified by a
paper containing
fuller notes upon Craft symbolism. To complete the
consideration of the
Craft the system it was necessary also to add a chapter
upon that which
forms the crown and culmination of the Order Craft
Degrees and without
which they would be imperfect--the Order of the Royal
Arch. Lastly a
chapter has been added upon the important subject which
forms the
background of the rest--the relationship of modern
Masonry to the Ancient
Mysteries, from which it is the direct, though greatly
attenuated,
spiritual descendant.
Thus in the five papers I have sought to provide a survey
of the whole
Masonic subject as expressed by the Craft and Arch
Degrees, which it is
hoped may prove illuminating to the increasing number of
Brethren who feel
that Freemasonry enshrines something deeper and greater
than, in the
absence of guidance, they have been able to realize. It
does not profess
to be more than an elementary and far from exhaustive
survey; the subject
might be treated much more fully, in more technical
terminology and with
abundant references to authorities, were one compiling a
more ambitious
and scholarly treatise. But to the average Mason such a
treatise would
probably prove less serviceable than a summary expressed
in as simple and
untechnical terms as may be and
unburdened by numerous literary
references. Some repetition, due to the papers having
been written at
different times, may be found in later chapters of points
already dealt
with in previous ones, though the restatement may be
advantageous in
emphasizi ng
those points and maintaining continuity of exposition. For
reasons of explained in the chapter itself, that on the
Holy Royal Arch
will probably prove difficult of comprehension by those
unversed in the
literature and psychology of religious mysticism; if so,
the reading of it
may be deferred or neglected. But since a survey of the
Masonic system
would, like the system itself, be incomplete without
reference to that
supreme Degree, and since that Degree deals with matters
of advanced
psychological and spiritual experience about which
explanation must always
be difficult, the subject has been treated here with as
much simplicity of
statement as is possible and rather with a view to
indicating to what
great heights of spiritual attainment the Craft Degrees
point as
achievable, than with the expectation that they will be
readily
comprehended by readers without some measure of mystical
experience and
perhaps unfamiliar with the testimony of the mystics
thereto.
Purposely these papers avoid dealing with matters of
Craft history and of
merely antiquarian or archaeological interest. Dates,
particulars of
Masonic constitutions, historical changes and
developments in the external
aspects of the Craft, references to old Lodges and the
names of
outstanding people connected therewith--these and such
like matters can be
read about elsewhere. They are all subordinate to what
alone is of vital
moment and what so many Brethren are hungering for--
knowledge of the
spiritual purpose and lineage of the Order and the
present-day value of
rites of Initiation.
In giving these pages to publication care has been taken
to observe due
reticence in respect of essential matters. The general
nature of the
Masonic system is, however, nowadays widely known to
outsiders and and
easily ascertainable from many printed sources, whilst
the large interest
in and output of literature upon mystical religion and
the science of the
inward Order life during the last few years has
familiarized many with a
subject of which, as is shown in these papers, Masonry is
but a
specialized form. To explain Masonry in general outline
is, therefore, not
to divulge a subject which is entirely exclusive to its
members, but
merely to show that Masonry stands in line with other
doctrinal systems
inculcating the same principles and to which no secrecy
attaches, and that
it is a specialized and highly effective method of
inculcating those
principles. Truth, whether as expressed in Masonry or
otherwise, is at all
times an open secret, but is as a pillar of light to
those able to receive
a nd profit by it, and to all
others but one of darkness and
unintelligibility. An elementary and formal secrecy is
requisite as a
practical precaution against the intrusion of improper
persons and for
preventing profanation. In other respects the vital
secrets of life, and
of any system expounding life, protect themselves even
though shouted from
the housetops, because they mean nothing to those as yet
unqualified for
the knowledge and unready to identify themselves with it
by incorporating
it into their habitual thought and conduct.
In view of the great spread and popularity of Masonry
to-day--when there
are some three thousand Lodges in
consider its present bearings and tendencies and to give
a thought to
future possibilities. The Order is a semi-secret, semi-public
institution;
secret in respect of its activities intra moenia, but otherwise of full
public notoriety, with its doors open to any applicant
for admission who
is of ordinary good character and repute. Those who enter
it, as the
majority do, entirely ignorant of what they will find
there, usually
because they have friends there or know Masonry to be an
institution
devoted to high ideals and benevolence and with which it
may be socially
desirable to be connected, may or may not be attracted
and profit by what
is disclosed to them, and may or may not see anything
beyond the bare form
of the symbol or hear anything beyond the mere letter of
the word. Their
admission is quite a lottery; their Initiation too often
remains but a
formality, not an actual awakening into an order and
quality of life
previously unexperienced; their
membership, unless such an awakening
eventually ensues from the careful study and faithful
practice of the
Order's teaching, has little, if any, greater influence
upon them than
would ensue from their joining a purely social club.
For " Initiation "--for which there are so many
candidates little
conscious of what is implied in that for which they
ask--what does it
really mean and intend? It means a new beginning (initium); a break-away
from an old method and order of life and the entrance
upon a new one of
larger self knowledge, deepened understanding and
intensified virtue. It
means a transition from the merely natural state and
standards of life
towards a regenerate and super-natural state and
standard. It means a
turning away from the pursuit of the popular ideals of
the outer world, in
the conviction that those ideals are but shadows, images
and temporal
substitutions for the eternal Reality that underlies
them, to the keen and
undivertible quest of that
Reality itself and the recovery of those
genuine secrets of our being which lie buried and hidden
at " the centre "
or innermost part of our souls. It means the awakening of
those hitherto
dormant higher faculties of the soul which endue their
possessor with
"light " in the form of new enhanced
consciousness and enlarged perceptive
faculty. And lastly, in words with which every Mason is
familiar, it means
that the postulant will henceforth dedicate and devote
his life to the
Divine rather than to his own or any other service, so
that by the
principles of the Order he may be the better enabled to
display that
beauty of godliness which previously perhaps has not
manifested through
him.
To comply with this definition of Initiation-which it
might be useful to
apply as a test not only to those who seek for admission
into the Order,
but to ourselves who are already within it--it is obvious
that special
qualifications of mind and intention are essential in a
candidate of the
type likely to be benefited by the Order in the way that
its doctrine
contemplates, and that it is not necessarily the ordinary
man of the
world, personal friend and good fellow though he be
according to usual
social standards, who is either properly prepared for, or
likely to
benefit in any vital sense by, reception into it. The
true candidate must
indeed needs be, as the word candidus
implies, a " white man," white
within as symbolically he is white-vestured without, so
that no inward
stain or soilure may obstruct
the dawn within his soul of that Light which
he professes to be the predominant wish of his heart on
asking for
admission; whilst, if really desirous of learning the
secrets and
mysteries of his o wn being, he
must be prepared to divest himself of all
past preconceptions and thought-habits and, with
childlike meekness and
docility, surrender his mind to the reception of some
perhaps novel and
unexpected truths which Initiation promises to impart and
which will more
and more unfold and justify themselves within those, and
those only, who
are, and continue to keep themselves, properly prepared
for them. " Know
thyself ! " was the injunction inscribed over the
portals of ancient
temples of Initiation, for with that knowledge was
promised the knowledge
of all secrets and all mysteries. And Masonry was
designed to teach
self-knowledge. But self-knowledge involves a knowledge
much deeper,
vaster and more difficult than is popularly conceived. It
is not to be
acquired by the formal passage through three or four
degrees in as many
months; it is a knowledge impossible of full achievement
until knowledge
of every other kind has been laid aside and a difficult
path of life long
and strenuously pur sued that
alone fits and leads its followers to its
attainment. The wisest and most advanced of us is perhaps
still but an
Entered Apprentice at this knowledge, however high his
titular rank. Here
and there may be one worthy of being hailed as a
Fellow-Craft in the true
sense. The full Master- The Mason--the just man made
perfect who has
actually and not merely ceremonially travelled
the entire path, endured
all its tests and ordeals, and become the raised into
conscious union with
the Author and Giver of Life and able to mediate and
impart that Order
life to others--is at all times hard to find.
So high, so ideal an attainment, it may be urged, is
beyond our reach; we
are but ordinary men of the world sufficiently occupied
already with our
primary civic, social and family obligations and
following the obvious
normal path of natural life ! Granted. Nevertheless to
point to that
attainment as possible to us and as our destiny, to
indicate that path of
self-perfecting to those who care and dare to follow it,
modern
Speculative Masonry was instituted, and to emphasizing
the fact these
papers are devoted. For Masonry means this or it means
nothing worth the
serious pursuit of thoughtful men; nothing that cannot be
pursued as well
outside the Craft as within it. It proclaims the fact
that there exists a
higher and more secret path of life than that which we
normally tread, and
that when the outer world and its pursuits and rewards
lose their
attractiveness for us and prove insufficient to our
deeper needs, as
sooner or later they will, we are compelled to turn back
upon ourselves,
to seek a nd knock at the door
of a world within; and it is upon this
inner world, and the path to and through it, that Masonry
promises light,
charts the way, and indicates the qualifications and
conditions of
progress. This is the sole aim and intention of Masonry.
Behind its more
elementary and obvious symbolism, behind its counsels to
virtue and
conventional morality, behind the platitudes and
sententious phraseology
(which nowadays might well be subjected to competent and
intelligent
revision) with which, after the fashion of their day, the
eighteenth-century compilers of its ceremonies clothed
its teaching, there
exists the framework of a scheme of initiation into that
higher path of
life where alone the secrets and mysteries of our being
are to be learned;
a scheme moreover that, as will be shown later in these
pages, reproduces
for the modern world the main features of the Ancient
Mysteries, and that
has been well described by a learned writer on the
subject as " an epitome
or reflecti on at a fa r distance of the once universal science."
But because, for long and for many, Masonry has meant
less than this, it
has not as yet
fulfilled its original purpose of being the efficient
initiating
instrument it was designed to be; its energies have been
diverted from its
true instructional purpose into social and
philanthropic
channels, excellent in their way, but foreign to and
accretions upon
the primal main intention. Indeed, so little perceived or
appreciated is
that central intention that one frequently hears it
confessed by men
of eminent position in the Craft and warm devotion to it
that only their
interest in its great charitable institutions keeps alive
their connection
with the Order. Relief is indeed a duty incumbent upon a
Mason, but its
Masonic interpretation is not meant to be limited to
physical
necessities. The spiritually as well as the financially poor and
distressed are
always with us and to the former, equally with the latter,
Masonry The was
designed to minister. Theoretically every man upon
reception into the
Craft acknowledges himself and as within the category
of the spiritually
poor, and as content to renounce all temporal riches
if haply by that
sacrifice his hungry heart may be filled with those good
things which money
cannot purchase, but to which the truly initiated can
help him.
But if Masonry has not as yet fulfilled its primary
purpose and, though
engaged in admirable secondary activities, is as yet an
initiating
instrument of low efficiency, it may be that, with
enlarged understanding
of its designs, that efficiency may yet become very
considerably
increased. During the last two centuries the Craft has
been gradually
developing from small and crude beginnings into its
present vast and
highly elaborated organization. To-day the number of
Lodges and the
membership of the Craft are increasing beyond all
precedent. One asks
oneself what this growing interest portends, and to what
it will, or can
be made to, lead ? The growth synchronizes with a
corresponding defection
of interest in orthodox religion and public worship. It
need not now be
enquired whether or to what extent the simple principles
of faith and the
humanitarian ideals of Masonry are with some men taking
the place of the
theology offered in the various Churches; it is probable
that to some
extent they do so . But the fact is with us that the
ideals of the Masonic
Order are making a wide appeal to the best instincts of
large numbers of
men and that the Order has imperceptibly become the
greatest social
institution in the Empire. Its principles of faith and
ethics are simple,
and of virtually universal acceptance. Providing means
for the expression
of universal fraternity under a common Divine Fatherhood
and of a common
loyalty to the headship and established government of the
State, it leaves
room for divergences of private belief and view upon
matters upon which
unity is impracticable and perhaps undesirable. It is
utterly clean of
politics and political intrigue, but nevertheless has
unconsciously become
a real, though unobtrusive, asset of political value,
both in stabilizing
the social fabric and tending to foster international
amity. The
elaborateness of its organization, the care and admirable
control of its
affairs by its higher authorities, are praiseworthy in
the extreme ,
whilst in the co nduct of its
individual Lodges there has been and is a
progressive endeavour to raise
the standard of ceremonial work to a far
higher degree of reverence and intelligence than was
perhaps possible
under conditions existing not long ago. The Masonic Craft
has grown and
ramified to dimensions undreamed of by its original
founders and, at its
present rate of increase, its potentialities and
influence in the future
are quite incalculable.
What seems now needed to intensify the worth and usefulness
of this great
Brotherhood is to deepen its understanding of its own
system, to educate
its members in the deeper meaning and true purpose of its
rites and its
philosophy. Were this achieved the Masonic Order would
become, in
proportion to that achievement, a spiritual force greater
than it can ever
be so long as it continues content with a formal and
unintelligent
perpetuation of rites, the real and sacred purpose of
which remains
largely unperceived, and participation in which too often
means nothing
more than association with an agreeable, semi-religious,
social
institution. Carried to its fullest, that achievement
would involve the
revival, in a form adapted to modern conditions, of the
ancient
Wisdom-teaching and the practice of those Mysteries which
became
proscribed fifteen centuries ago, but of which modern
Masonry is the
direct and representative descendant, as will appear
later in these pages.
The future development and the value of the Order as a
moral force in
society depend, therefore, upon the view its members take
of their system.
If they do not spiritualize it they will but increasingly
materialize it.
If they fail to interpret its veiled purport, to enter
into the
understanding of its underlying philosophy, and to
translate its symbolism
into what is signified thereby, they will be mistaking
shadow for
substance, a husk for the kernel, and secularizing what
was designed as a
means of spiritual instruction and grace. It is from lack
of instruction
rather than of desire to learn the meaning of Masonry
that the Craft
suffers to-day. But, as one finds everywhere, that desire
exists; and so,
for what they may be worth, these papers are offered to
the Craft as a
contribution towards satisfying it.
Let me conclude with an apologue and an aspiration.
In the Chronicles of Israel it may be read how that,
after long
preparatory labour, after
employing the choicest material and the most
skilful artificers, Solomon the King at last made an end
of building and
beautifying his
that work of his hands in a state as perfect as human
provision could make
it; and how that then, but not till then, his offering
was accepted and
the acceptance was signified by a Divine descent upon it
so that the glory
of the Lord shone through and filled the whole house.
So--if we will have it so--may it be with the temple of
the Masonic Order.
Since the inception of Speculative Masonry it has been
a-building and
expanding now these last three hundred years. Fashioned
of living stones
into a far-reaching organic structure; brought gradually,
under the good
guidance of its rulers, to high perfection on its
temporal side and in
respect of its external observances, and made available
for high purposes
and giving godly witness in a dark and troubled world;
upon these
preliminary efforts let there now be invoked this
crowning and completing
blessing-- that the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding
may descend upon
the work of our hands in abundant measure, prospering it
still farther,
and filling and transfiguring our whole Masonic house.
Chapter I.
THE DEEPER SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY
A CANDIDATE proposing to enter Freemasonry has seldom
formed any definite
idea of the nature of what he is engaging in. Even after
his admission he
usually remains quite at a loss to explain satisfactorily
what Masonry is
and for what purpose his Order exists. He finds, indeed,
that it is " a
system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by
symbols," but
that explanation, whilst true, is but partial and does
not carry him very
far. For many members of the Craft to be a Mason implies
merely connection
with a body which seems to be something combining the
natures of a club
and a benefit society. They find, of course, a certain
religious element
in it, but as they are told that religious discussion,
which means, of
course, sectarian religious discussion, is forbidden in
the Lodge, they
infer that Masonry is not a religious institution, and
that its teachings
are intended to be merely secondary and supplemental to
any religious
tenets they may happen to hold. One sometimes hears it remarke d that
Masonry is " not a religion "; which in a sense
is quite true; and
sometimes that it is a secondary or supplementary
religion, which is quite
untrue. Again Masonry is often supposed, even by its own
members, to be a
system of extreme antiquity, that was practised
and that has come down in
well-nigh its present form from Egyptian or at least from
early Hebrew
sources: a view which again possesses the merest modicum
of truth. In
brief, the vaguest notions obtain about the origin and
history of the
Craft, whilst the still more vital subject of its
immediate and present
purpose, and of its possibilities, remains almost
entirely outside the
consciousness of many of its own members. We meet in our
Lodges regularly;
we perform our ceremonial work and repeat our
catechetical
instruction-lectures night after night with a less or
greater degree of
intelligence and verbal perfection, and there our work
ends, as though the
ability to pe rform this work creditably were the be-all and the end-all
of M asonic work. Seldom or
never do we employ our Lodge meetings for that
purpose for which, quite as much as for ceremonial
purposes, they were
intended, viz.: for " expatiating on the mysteries
of the Craft," and
perhaps our neglect to do so is because we have ourselves
imperfectly
realized what those mysteries are into which our Order
was primarily
formed to introduce us.
Yet, there exists a large number of brethren who would
willingly repair
this obvious deficiency; brethren to whose natures
Masonry, even in their
more limited aspect of it, makes a profound appeal, and
who feel their
membership of the Craft to be a privilege which has
brought them into the
presence of something greater than they know, and that
enshrines a purpose
and that could unfold a message deeper than they at
present realize.
In a brief address like this it is hopeless to attempt to
deal at all
adequately with what I have suggested are deficiencies in
our knowledge of
the system we belong to. The most one can hope to do is
to offer a few
hints or clues, which those who so desire may develop for
themselves in
the privacy of their own thought. For in the last
resource no one can
communicate the deeper things in Masonry to another.
Every man must
discover and learn them for himself, although a friend or
brother may be
able to conduct him a certain distance on the path of
understanding. We
know that even the elementary and superficial secrets of
the Order must
not be communicated to unqualified persons, and the
reason for this
injunction is not so much because those secrets have any
special value,
but because that silence is intended to be typical of
that which applies
to the greater, deeper secrets, some of which, for
appropriate reasons,
must not be communicated, and some of which indeed are
not communicable at
all, because they transcend the power of communication.
It is well to emphasize then, at the outset, that Masonry
is a sacramental
system, possessing, like all sacraments, an outward and
visible side
consisting of its ceremonial, its doctrine and its
symbols which we can
see and hear, and an inward, intellectual and spiritual
side, which is
concealed behind the ceremonial, the doctrine and the
symbols, and which
is available only to the Mason who has learned to use his
spiritual
imagination and who can appreciate the reality that lies
behind the veil
of outward symbol. Anyone, of course, can understand the
simpler meaning
of our symbols, especially with the help of the
explanatory lectures; but
he may still miss the meaning of the scheme as a vital
hole. It is absurd
to think that a vast organization like Masonry was
ordained merely to
teach to grown-up men of the world the symbolical meaning
of a few simple
builders' tools, or to impress upon us such Masonry
elementary virtues as
temperance and justice:--the children in every village
school are t aught
such things; or to enforce such simple principles of
morals as brotherly
love, which every church and every religion teaches; or
as relief, which
is practised quite as much by
non-Masons as by us; or of truth, which
every infant learns upon its mother's knee. There is
surely, too, no need
for us to join a secret society to be taught that the
volume of the Sacred
Law is a fountain of truth and instruction; or to go
through the great and
elaborate ceremony of the third degree merely to learn
that we have each
to die. The Craft whose work we are taught to honour with
the name of a "
science," a " royal art," has surely some
larger end in view than merely
inculcating the practice of social virtues common to all
the world and by
no means the monopoly of Freemasons. Surely, then, it
behooves us to
acquaint ourselves with what that larger end consists, to
enquire why the
fulfilment of that purpose is
worthy to be called a scien ce,
and to
ascertain what are those " mysteries " to which
our doctr ine promises we
may ultimately attain if we apply ourselves assiduously
enough to
understanding what Masonry is capable of teaching us.
Realizing, then, what Masonry cannot be deemed to be, let
us ask what it
is. But before answering that question, let me put you in
possession of
certain facts that will enable you the better to
appreciate the answer
when I formulate it. In all periods of the world's
history, and in every
part of the globe, secret orders and societies have
existed outside the
Deeper limits of the official churches for the purpose of
teaching what
are called " the Mysteries ": for imparting to
suitable and prepared minds
certain truths of human life, certain instructions about
divine things,
about the things that belong to our peace, about human
nature and human
destiny, which it was undesirable to publish to the
multitude who would
but profane those teachings and apply the esoteric
knowledge that was
communicated to perverse and perhaps to disastrous ends.
These Mysteries were formerly taught, we are told, "
on the highest hills
and in the lowest valleys," which is merely a figure
of speech for saying,
first, that they have been taught in circumstances of the
greatest
seclusion and secrecy, and secondly, that they have been
taught in both
advanced and simple forms according to the understanding
of their
disciples. It is, of course, common knowledge that great
secret systems of
the Mysteries (referred to in our lectures as "
noble orders of
architecture," i.e., of soul-building) existed in
the East, in
and amongst Christians; even among uncivilized African
races they are to
be found. All the great teachers of humanity, Socrates,
Plato, Pythagoras,
Moses, Aristotle, Virgil, the author of the Homeric
poems, and the great
Greek tragedians, along with
great names--were initiates of the Sacred Mysteries. The
form of the
teaching co mmunicated has
varied considerably from age to age; it has
been expressed under different veils; but since the
ultimate truth the
Mysteries aim at teaching is always one and the same,
there has always
been taught, and can only be taught, one and the same
doctrine. What that
doctrine was, and still is, we will consider presently so
far as we are
able to speak of it, and so far as Masonry gives
expression to it. For the
moment let me merely say that behind all the official
religious systems of
the world, and behind all the great moral movements and
developments in
the history of humanity, have stood what
stewards of the Mysteries." From that source
Christianity itself came into
the world. From them originated the great
marvellous system of secret,
oral tradition of the Hebrews, a strong
element of which has been introduced into our Masonic
system. From them,
too, also issued many fraternities and orders, such, for
instance, as the
great o rders of Chivalry and
of the Rosicrucians, and the school of
spiritual alchemy. Lastly, from them too also issued, in
the seventeenth
century, modern speculative Freemasonry.
To trace the genesis of the movement, which came into
activity some 250
years ago (our rituals and ceremonies having been
compiled round about the
year 1700), is beyond the purpose of my present remarks.
It may merely be
stated that the movement itself incorporated the slender
ritual and the
elementary symbolism that, for centuries previously, had
been employed in
connection with the medieval Building Guilds, but it gave
to them a far
fuller meaning and a far wider scope. It has always been
the custom for
Trade Guilds, and even for modern Friendly Societies, to
spiritualize
their trades, and to make the tools of their trade point
some simple
moral. No trade, perhaps, lends itself more readily to
such treatment than
the builder's trade; but wherever a great industry has
flourished, there
you will find traces of that industry becoming
allegorized, and of the
allegory being employed for the simple moral instruction
of those who were
operative members of the industry. I am acquainted, for
instance , with an
Egyptian ceremonial system, some 5,000 years old, which
taught precisely
the same things as Masonry does, but in the terms of
shipbuilding instead
of in the terms of architecture. But the terms of
architecture were
employed by those who originated modern Masonry because
they were ready to
hand; because they were in use among certain trade-guilds
then in
existence; and lastly, because they are extremely
effective and
significant from the symbolic point of view.
All that I wish to emphasize at this stage is that our
present system is
not one coming
from remote antiquity: that there is no direct continuity
between us and the
Egyptians, or even those ancient Hebrews who built, in
the reign of King
Solomon, a certain
extremely ancient
in Freemasonry is the spiritual doctrine concealed
within the
architectural phraseology; for this doctrine is an elementary
form of the
doctrine that has been taught in all ages, no matter in what
garb it has been
expressed. Our own teaching, for instance, recognizes
Pythagoras as
having undergone numerous initiations in different parts of
the world, and as
having attained great eminence in the science. Now it
is perfectly
certain that Pythagoras was not a Mason at all in our
present sense of
the word; but it is also perfectly certain that
Pythagoras was a
very highly advanced master in the knowledge of the
secret schools of
the Mysteries, of whose doctrine some small portion is
enshrined for us
in our Masonic system.
What then was the purpose the framers of our Masonic
system had in view
when they compiled it ? To this question you will find no
satisfying
answer in ordinary Masonic books. Indeed there is nothing
more dreary and
dismal than Masonic literature and Masonic histories,
which are usually
devoted to considering merely unessential matters
relating to the external
development of the Craft and to its antiquarian aspect.
They fail entirely
to deal with its vital meaning and essence, a failure
that, in some cases,
may be intentional, but that more often seems due to lack
of knowledge and
perception, for the true, inner history of Masonry has
never yet been
given forth even to the Craft itself. There are members
of the Craft to
whom it is familiar, and who in due time may feel
justified in gradually
making public at any rate some portion of what is known
in interior
circles. But ere that time comes, and that the Craft
itself may the better
appreciate what can be told, it is desirable, nay even necessar y, that
its own members should make some effort to realize the
meaning of their
own institution, and should display symptoms of earnest
desire to treat it
less as a system of archaic and perfunctory rites, and
more as a vital
reality capable of entering into and dominating their
lives; less as a
merely pleasant social order, and more as a sacred and
serious method of
initiation into the profoundest truths of life It is
written that " to him
that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not
shall be taken away
even that which he hath "; and it remains with the
Craft itself to
determine by its own action whether it shall enter into
its full heritage,
or whether, by failing to realize and to safeguard the
value of what it
possesses, by suffering its own mysteries to be
vulgarized and profaned,
its organization will degenerate and pass into disrepute
and deserved
oblivion, as has been the fate of many secret orders in
the past.
There are signs, however, of a well-nigh universal
increase of interest,
of a genuine desire for knowledge of the spiritual
content of our Masonic
system, and I am glad to be able to offer to my Brethren
some light and
imperfect outline of what I conceive to be the true
purpose of our work,
which may tend to deepen their interest in the work of
the Order they
belong to, and (what is of more moment still) help to
make Masonry for
them a vital factor, and a living, serious reality,
rather than a mere
pleasurable appendage to social life.
To state things briefly, Masonry offers us, in dramatic
form and by means
of dramatic ceremonial a philosophy of the spiritual life
of man and a
diagram of the process of regeneration. We shall see
presently that
philosophy is not only consistent with the doctrine of
every religious
system taught outside the ranks of the Order, but that it
explains,
elucidates and more sharply defines, the fundamental
doctrines common to
every religious system in the world, whether past or
present, whether
Christian or non-Christian. The religions of the world,
though all aiming
at teaching truth, express that truth in different ways,
and we are more
prone to emphasize the differences than to look for the
correspondences in
what they teach. In some Masonic Lodges the candidate
makes his first
entrance to the Lodge room amid the clash of swords and
the sounds of
strife, to intimate to him that he is leaving the
confusion and jarring of
the religious sects of the exterior world, and is passing
into a
wher ein
the Brethren dwell together in unity of thought in regard to the
basal truths of life, truths which can permit of no
difference or schism.
Allied with no external religious system itself, Masonry
is yet a
synthesis, a concordat, for men of every race, of every
creed, of every
sect, and its foundation principles being common to them
all, admit of no
variation. "As it was in the beginning, so it is now
and ever shall be,
into the ages of ages." Hence it is that every
Master of a Lodge is called
upon to swear that no innovation in the body of Masonry
(i.e., in its
substantial doctrine) is possible, since it already contains
a minimum,
and yet a sufficiency, of truth which none may add to nor
alter, and from
which none may take away; and since the Order accords
perfect liberty of
opinion to all men, the truths it has to offer are
entirely " free to" us
according to our capacity to assimilate them, whilst
those to whom they do
not appeal, those who think they can find a more
sufficing philosophy
elsewhere, are equally at liberty to be " free from
" them, and men of
honour will find it their duty to withdraw from the Order
rather than
suffer the harmony of thought that should characterize
the Craft to be
disturbed by their presence.
The admission of every Mason into the Order is, we are
taught, " an
emblematical representation of the entrance of all men
upon this mortal
existence." Let us reflect a little upon these
pregnant words. To those
deep persistent questionings which present themselves to
every thinking
mind, What am I ? Whence come I ? Whither go I ?, Masonry
offers emphatic
and luminous answers. Each of us, it tells us, has come
from that mystical
" East," the eternal source of all light and
life, and our life here is
described as being spent in the " West " (that
is, in a world which is the
antipodes of our original home, and under conditions of
existence as far
removed from those we came from and to which we are
returning, as is West
from East in our ordinary computation of space). Hence
every Candidate
upon admission finds himself, in a state of darkness, in
the West of the
Lodge. Thereby he is repeating symbolically the incident
of his actual
birth into this world, which he entered as a blind and
helpless ba be, and
through which in his early years, not knowing whither he
was going, after
many stumbling and irregular steps, after many deviations
from the true
path and after many tribulations and adversities incident
to human life,
he may at length ascend, purified and chastened by
experience, to larger
life in the eternal East. Hence in the E.A. degree, we
ask, " As a Mason,
whence come you ? " and the answer, coming from an
Meaning apprentice
(i.e., from the natural man of undeveloped M of
knowledge) is " From the
West," since he supposes that his life has
originated in this world. But,
in the advanced degree of M.M. the answer is that he
comes " From the
East," for by this time the Mason is supposed to
have so enlarged his
knowledge as to realize that the primal source of life is
not in the "
West," not in this world; that existence upon this
planet is but a
transitory sojourn, spent in search of " the genuine
secrets," the ultim
ate realities, of life; and that as the spirit of man
must return t o God
who gave it, so he is now returning from this temporary
world of "
substituted secrets " to that " East "
from which he originally came.
As the admission of every candidate into a Lodge
presupposes his prior
existence in the world without the Lodge, so our doctrine
presupposes that
every soul born into this world has lived in, and has
come hither from, an
anterior state of life. It has lived elsewhere before it
entered this
world: it will live elsewhere when it passes hence, human
life being but a
parenthesis in the midst of eternity. But upon entering
this world, the
soul must needs assume material form; in other words it
takes upon itself
a physical body to enable it to enter into relations with
the physical
world, and to perform the functions appropriate to it in
this particular
phase of its career. Need I say that the physical form
with which we have
all been invested by the Creator upon our entrance into
this world, and of
which we shall all divest ourselves when we leave the
Lodge of this life,
is represented among us by our Masonic apron ? This, our
body of
mortality, this veil of flesh and blood clothing the
inner soul of us,
this is the real " badge of innocence," the
common " bond of friendship,"
with which the Great Architect has been pleased to invest
us all: this,
the human body, is the badge which is " older and
nobler than that of any
other Order in existence ": and though it be but a
body of humiliation
compared with that body of incorruption which is the
promised inheritance
of him who endures to the end, let us never forget that
if we never do
anything to disgrace the badge of flesh with which God
has endowed each of
us, that badge will never disgrace us.
Brethren, I charge you to regard your apron as one of the
most precious
and speaking symbols our Order has to give you. Remember
that when you
first wore it was a piece of pure white lambskin; an
emblem of that purity
and innocence which we always associate with the lamb and
with the
new-born child. Remember that you first wore it with the
flap raised, it
being thus a five-cornered badge, indicating the five
senses, by means of
which we enter into relations with the material world
around us (our "
five points of fellowship " with the material
world), but indicating also
by the triangular portion above, in conjunction with the
quadrangular
portion below, that man's nature is a combination of soul
and body; the
three-sided emblem at the top added to the four-sided
emblem beneath
making seven, the perfect number; for, as it is written
in an ancient
Hebrew doctrine with which Masonry is closely allied,
" God blessed and
loved the number seven more than all things under His
throne," by which is
mea nt that man, the seven-fold
being, is of the most cherished of all the
Creator's works. And hence also it is that the Lodge has
seven principal
officers, and that a Lodge, to be perfect, requires the
presence of seven
brethren; though the deeper meaning of this phrase is
that the individual
man, in virtue of his seven-fold constitution, in himself
constitutes the
" perfect Lodge," if he will but know himself
and analyse his own nature
aright.
To each of us also from our birth have been given three
lesser lights, by
which the Lodge within ourselves may be illumined. For
the " sun "
symbolizes our spiritual consciousness, the higher
aspirations and
emotions of the soul; the " moon " betokens our
reasoning or intellectual
faculties, which (as the moon reflects the light of the
sun) should
reflect the light coming from the higher spiritual
faculty and transmit it
into our daily conduct; whilst " the Master of the
Lodge " is a symbolical
phrase denoting the will-power of man, which should
enable him to be
master of his own life, to control his own actions and
keep down the
impulses of his lower nature, even as the stroke of the
Master's gavel
controls the Lodge and calls to order and obedience the
Brethren under his
direction. By the assistance of these lesser lights
within us, a man is
enabled to perceive what is, again symbolically, called
the " form of the
Lodge," i.e., the way in which his own human nature
has been composed and
cons tituted, the length,
breadth, height and depth of his own being. By
their help, too, he will perceive that he himself, his
body and his soul,
are " holy ground," upon which he should build
the altar of his own
spiritual life, an altar Deeper which he should suffer no
" iron tool," no
debasing habit of thought or conduct, to defile. By them,
of too, he will
perceive how Wisdom, Strength and Beauty have been
employed by the
Creator, like three grand supporting pillars, in the
structure of his own
organism. And by these finally he will discern how that
there is a
mystical " ladder of many rounds or staves,"
i.e., that there are
innumerable paths or methods by means of which men are
led upwards to the
spiritual Light encircling us all, and in which we live
and move and have
our being, but that of the three principal methods, the
greatest of these,
the one that comprehends them all and brings us nearest
heaven, is Love,
in the full exercise of which God-like virtue a Mason
reaches the summit o
f his profession; that summit being God Himself, whose
name is Love.
I cannot too strongly impress upon you, Brethren, the
fact that,
throughout our rituals and our lectures, the references
made to the Lodge
are not to the building in which we meet. That building
itself is intended
to be but a symbol, a veil of allegory concealing
something else. "Know ye
not " says the great initiate
Most High; and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you ? " The real Lodge
referred to throughout our rituals is our own individual
personalities,
and if we interpret our doctrine in the light of this
fact we shall find
that it reveals an entirely new aspect of the purpose of
our Craft.
It is after investment with the apron that the initiate
is placed in the
N.E. corner. Thereby he is intended to learn that at his
birth into this
world the foundation-stone of his spiritual life was duly
and truly laid
and implanted within himself; and he is charged to
develop it; to create a
superstructure upon it. Two paths are open to him at this
stage, a path of
light and a path of darkness; a path of good and a path
of evil. The N.E.
corner is the symbolical dividing place between the two.
In symbolical
language, the N. always signifies the place of
imperfection and
undevelopment; in olden times
the bodies of suicides, reprobates and
unbaptized children were always
buried in the north or sunless side of a
churchyard. The seat of the junior members of the Craft
is allotted to the
north, for, symbolically, it represents the condition of
the spiritually
unenlightened man; the novice in whom the spiritual light
latent within
him has not yet risen above the horizon of consciousness
and dispers ed
the clouds of material interests and the impulses of the
lower and merely
sensual life. The initiate placed in the N.E. corner is
intended to see,
then, that on the one side of him is the path that leads
to the perpetual
light of the East, into which he is encouraged to
proceed, and that on the
other is that of spiritual obscurity and ignorance into
which it is
possible for him to remain or relapse. It is a parable of
the dual paths
of life open to each one of us; on the one hand the path
of selfishness,
material desires and sensual indulgence, of intellectual
blindness and
moral stagnation; on the other the path of moral and
spiritual progress,
in pursuing which one may decorate and adorn the Lodge
within him with the
ornaments a jewels of grace and with the invaluable
furniture of true
knowledge, and which he may dedicate, in all his actions,
to the service
of God and of his fellow men And mark that of those
jewels some are said
to be moveable and transferable, because when displayed
in o
and natures their influence becomes transferred and
communicated to others
and helps to uplift and sweeten the lives of our fellows;
whilst some are
immoveable because they are permanently fixed and planted
in the roots of
our own being, and are indeed the raw material which has
been entrusted to
us to work out of chaos and roughness into due and true
form.
The Ceremony of our first degree, then, is a swift and
comprehensive
portrayal of the entrance of all men into, first,
physical life, and
second, into spiritual life; and as we extend
congratulations when a child
is born into the world, so also we receive with
acclamation the candidate
for Masonry who, symbolically, is seeking for spiritual
re-birth; and
herein we emulate what is written of the joy that exists
among the angels
of heaven over every sinner who repents and turns towards
the light. The
first degree is also eminently the degree of preparation,
of
self-discipline and purification. It corresponds with
that symbolical
cleansing accorded in the sacrament of Baptism, which, in
the churches,
is, so to speak, the first degree in the religious life;
and which is
administered, appropriately, at the font, near the
entrance of the church,
even as the act itself takes place at the entrance of the
spiritual
career. For to all of us such initial cleansing and
purifying is
necessary. As has been beautifully written by a
fellow-worker in the
Craft:--
"'Tis scarcely true that
souls come naked down To take abode up in this
earthly town, Or naked pass, of all they wear denied. We
enter slipshod
and with clothes awry, And we take with us much that
by-and-by May prove
no easy task to put aside.
Cleanse, therefore, that which round about us clings, We
pray Thee,
Master, ere Thy sacred halls We enter. Strip us of
redundant things, And
meetly clothe us in pontificals