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THE MEANING OF MASONRY: Hidden System of Enlightenment & Personal Power - W. L. WILMSHURST (1922) · SECRETS OF SUCCESS & WEALTH: Hidden Laws of Money, Power & Success

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Speaker 1: The Meaning of Masonry by W. L. Wilmshurst, nineteen twenty two.
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Speaker 1: Introduction The Position and Possibilities of the Masonic Order. The
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Speaker 1: papers here collected are written solely for members of the
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Speaker 1: Masonic Order constituted under the United Grand Lodge of England.
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Speaker 1: To all such. They are offered in the best spirit
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Speaker 1: of fraternity and good will, and with the wish to
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Speaker 1: render to the Order some small return for the profit
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Speaker 1: the author has received from his association with it, extending
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Speaker 1: over thirty two years. They have been written with a
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Speaker 1: view to promoting the deeper understanding of the meaning of Masonry,
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Speaker 1: to providing the explanation of it that one constantly hears
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Speaker 1: called for, and that becomes all the more necessary in
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Speaker 1: view of the unprecedented increase of interest in and membership
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Speaker 1: of the Order at the present day. The meaning of Masonry, however,
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Speaker 1: is a subject usually left entirely unexpounded, and that accordingly
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Speaker 1: remains largely unrealized by its members, save such few as
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Speaker 1: make it their private study. The authorities of what I,
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Speaker 1: in all other respects is an elaborately organized and admirably
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Speaker 1: controlled community, have hitherto made no provision for explaining in
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Speaker 1: teaching them noble science, which Masonry proclaims itself to be
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Speaker 1: and was certainly designed to impart. It seems taken for
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Speaker 1: granted that reception into the Order will automatically be accompanied
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Speaker 1: by an ability to appreciate, forthwith and at its full value,
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Speaker 1: all that one their finds. The contrary is the case,
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Speaker 1: for Masonry is a veiled and cryptic expression of the
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Speaker 1: difficult science of spiritual life, and the understanding of it
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Speaker 1: calls for special and informed guidance on the one hand,
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Speaker 1: and on the other a genuine and earnest desire for
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Speaker 1: knowledge and no small capacity for spiritual perception on the
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Speaker 1: part of those seeking to be instructed. And not infrequently
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Speaker 1: one finds brethren discontinuing their interest or their membership because
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Speaker 1: they find that Masonry means nothing to them and that
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Speaker 1: no explanation or guidance is vouchsafed them. Where such instruction,
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Speaker 1: provided assimilated and responded to, the life of the Order
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Speaker 1: would be enormously quickened and deepened, and its efficiency as
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Speaker 1: a means of initiation intensified, whilst incidentally the fact would
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Speaker 1: prove an added safeguard against the admission into the Order
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Speaker 1: of unsuitable members by which is meant not merely persons
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Speaker 1: who fail to satisfy conventional qualifications, but also those who,
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Speaker 1: whilst fitted in these respects, are as yet either so
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Speaker 1: intellectually or spiritually unprogressed as to be incapable of benefiting
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Speaker 1: from initiation in its true sense. Although passing formally through
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Speaker 1: initiation rites spiritual quality rather than numbers, ability to understand
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Speaker 1: the Masonic system and reduce its implications into personal experience
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Speaker 1: rather than the perfunctory conferment of its rights, are the
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Speaker 1: desiderata of the craft today. As a contribution to repairing
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Speaker 1: the absence of explanation referred to, these papers have been compiled.
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Speaker 1: The first two of them have often been read as
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Speaker 1: lectures at lodge meetings. Many requests that they should be
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Speaker 1: printed and made more widely available led to my expanding
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Speaker 1: their subject matter into greater detail than could be used
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Speaker 1: for occasional lectures, and accordingly they are here amplified by
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Speaker 1: a paper containing fuller notes upon craft symbolism. To complete
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Speaker 1: the consideration of the Craft system, it was necessary also
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Speaker 1: to add a chapter upon that which forms the crown
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Speaker 1: and culmination of the Craft degrees, and without which they
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Speaker 1: would be imperfect. The order of the Royal arch. Lastly,
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Speaker 1: a chapter has been added upon the important subject which
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Speaker 1: forms the background of the rest, the relationship of modern
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Speaker 1: Masonry to the ancient mysteries from which it is the direct,
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Speaker 1: though greatly attenuated, spiritual descendant. Thus, in the five papers
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Speaker 1: I have sought to provide a survey of the whole
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Speaker 1: Masonic subject as expressed by the craft and arch degrees,
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Speaker 1: which it is hoped may prove illuminating to the increasing
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Speaker 1: number of brethren who feel that Freemasonry enshrines something deeper
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Speaker 1: and greater than in the absence of guidance they have
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Speaker 1: been able to realize. It does not profess to be
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Speaker 1: more than an elementary and far from exhaustive survey. The
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Speaker 1: subject might be treated much more fully in more technical
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Speaker 1: terminology and with abundant references to authorities, were one compiling
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Speaker 1: a more ambitious and scholarly treatise. But to the average Mason,
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Speaker 1: such a treatise would probably prove less serviceable than as
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Speaker 1: summary expressed in as simple and untechnical terms as may
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Speaker 1: be an unburdened by numerous literary references. Some repetition, due
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Speaker 1: to the papers having been written at different times, may
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Speaker 1: be found in later chapters of points already dealt with
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Speaker 1: in previous ones, though the restatement may be advantageous in
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Speaker 1: emphasizing those points and maintaining continuity of exposition, for reasons
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Speaker 1: explained in the chapter itself, that on the Holy Royal
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Speaker 1: Arch will probably prove difficult of comprehension by those unversed
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Speaker 1: in the literature and psychology of religious mysticism. If so,
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Speaker 1: the reading of it may be deferred or neglected. But
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Speaker 1: since a survey of the Masonic system would like the
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Speaker 1: system itself be incomplete without reference to that supreme degree,
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Speaker 1: and since that dec greed deals with matters of advanced
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Speaker 1: psychological and spiritual experience, about which explanation must always be difficult,
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Speaker 1: the subject has been treated here with as much simplicity
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Speaker 1: of statement as is possible, and rather with a view
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Speaker 1: to indicating to what great heights of spiritual attainment the
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Speaker 1: craft degrees point as achievable, than with the expectation that
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Speaker 1: they will be readily comprehended by readers without some measure
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Speaker 1: of mystical experience, and perhaps unfamiliar with the testimony of
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Speaker 1: the mystics there too. Purposely, these papers avoid dealing with
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Speaker 1: matters of craft history and of merely antiquarian or archaeological interest, dates,
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Speaker 1: particulars of Masonic constitutions, historical changes and developments in the
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Speaker 1: external aspects of the craft, references to old lodges, and
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Speaker 1: the names of outstanding people connected Therewith These and such
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Speaker 1: like matters can be read about elsewhere. They are all
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Speaker 1: subordinate to what alone is a vital moment, and what
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Speaker 1: so many brethren are hungering for knowledge of the spiritual
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Speaker 1: purpose and lineage of the order, and the present day
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Speaker 1: value of rights of initiation. In giving these pages to publication,
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Speaker 1: care has been taken to observe due reticence in respect
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Speaker 1: of essential matters. The general nature of the Masonic system is, however,
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Speaker 1: nowadays widely known to outsiders and easily ascertainable from many
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Speaker 1: printed sources. Whilst the large interest in and output of
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Speaker 1: literature upon mystical religion and the science of the inward
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Speaker 1: life during the last few years has familiarized many with
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Speaker 1: a subject of which, as is shown in these papers,
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Speaker 1: masonry is but a specialized form. To explain masonry in general,
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Speaker 1: outline is therefore not to divulge a subject which is
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Speaker 1: entirely exclusive to its members, but merely to show that
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Speaker 1: Masonry stands in line with other doctrinal systems inculcating the
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Speaker 1: same principles, and to which no secrecy attaches, and that
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Speaker 1: it is a specialized and highly effective method of inculcating
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Speaker 1: those principles. Truth, whether as expressed in masonry or otherwise,
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Speaker 1: is at all times an open secret, but is as
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Speaker 1: a pillar of light to those able to receive and
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Speaker 1: profit by it, and to all others, but one of
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Speaker 1: darkness and unintelligibility. An elementary informal secrecy is requisite as
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Speaker 1: a practical precaution against the intrusion of improper persons, and
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Speaker 1: for preventing profanation. In other respects, the vital secrets of life,
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Speaker 1: and of any system expounding life, protect themselves, even though
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Speaker 1: shouted from the housetops, because they mean nothing to those
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Speaker 1: as yet unqualified for the knowledge and unready to identify
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Speaker 1: themselves with it by incorporating it into their habitual thought
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Speaker 1: and conduct. In view of the great spread and popularity
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Speaker 1: of masonry today, when there are some three thousand lodges
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Speaker 1: in Great Britain alone, it is as well to consider
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Speaker 1: its present bearings and tendencies, and to give a thought
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Speaker 1: to future possibilities. The Order is a semi secret, semi
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Speaker 1: public institution, secret and respect of its activities intramoenia, but
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Speaker 1: otherwise of full public notoriety, with its doors open to
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Speaker 1: any applicant for admission who is of ordinary good care,
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Speaker 1: character and repute. Those who enter it, as the majority,
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Speaker 1: do entirely ignorant of what they will find there, usually
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Speaker 1: because they have friends there or no masonry. To be
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Speaker 1: an institution devoted to high ideals and benevolence, and with
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Speaker 1: which it may be socially desirable to be connected, may
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Speaker 1: or may not be attracted and profit by what is
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Speaker 1: disclosed to them, and may or may not see anything
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Speaker 1: beyond the bare form of the symbol or hear anything
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Speaker 1: beyond the mere letter of the word. Their admission is
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Speaker 1: quite a lottery. Their initiation, too often remains but a formality,
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Speaker 1: not an actual awakening into an order and quality of
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Speaker 1: life previously unexperienced. Their membership, unless such an awakening eventually
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Speaker 1: ensues from the careful study and faithful practice of the
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Speaker 1: Order's teaching, has little, if any greater influence upon them
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Speaker 1: than would ensue from their joining a purely social club.
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Speaker 1: For initiation for which there are so many candidates, little
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Speaker 1: conscious of what is implied in that for which they ask,
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Speaker 1: what does it really mean and intend? It means a
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Speaker 1: new beginning initium, a breakaway from an old method and
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Speaker 1: order of life, and the entrance upon a new one
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Speaker 1: of larger self knowledge, deepened understanding, and intensified virtue. It
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Speaker 1: means a transition from the merely natural state and standards
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Speaker 1: of life towards a regenerate and supernatural state and standard.
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Speaker 1: It means a turning away from the pursuit of the
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Speaker 1: popular ideals of the outer world, in the conviction that
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Speaker 1: those ideals are but shadows, images, and temporal substitutions for
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Speaker 1: the eternal reality that underlies them, to the keen and
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Speaker 1: undivertible quest of that reality itself, and the recovery of
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Speaker 1: those genuine secrets of our being which lie buried and
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Speaker 1: hidden at the center or innermost part of our souls.
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Speaker 1: It means the awakening of those hitherto dormant higher faculties
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Speaker 1: of the soul which indue their possessor with light in
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Speaker 1: the form of new enhanced consciousness and enlarged perceptive faculty.
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Speaker 1: And lastly, in words with which every Mason is familiar.
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Speaker 1: It means that the postulant will henceforth dedicate and devote
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Speaker 1: his life to the divine rather than to his own
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Speaker 1: or any other service, so that by the principles of
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Speaker 1: the Order, he may be the better enabled to display
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Speaker 1: that beauty of Godliness which previously perhaps has not manifested
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Speaker 1: through him. To comply with this definition of initiation, which
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Speaker 1: it might be useful to apply as a test not
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Speaker 1: only to those who seek for admission into the Order,
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Speaker 1: but to ourselves who are already within it, it is
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Speaker 1: obvious that special qualifications of mind and intention are essential
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Speaker 1: in a candidate of the type likely to be benefited
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Speaker 1: by the Order in the way that its doctrine contemplates,
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Speaker 1: and that it is not necessarily the ordinary man of
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Speaker 1: the world, personal friend and good fellow, though he be,
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Speaker 1: according to usual social standards, who is either properly prepared
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Speaker 1: for or likely to benefit in any vital sense by
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Speaker 1: reception into it. The true candidate must, indeed needs, be,
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Speaker 1: as the word candidates implies, a white man white within us. Symbolically,
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Speaker 1: he is white vestured without so that no inward stain
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Speaker 1: or soilier may obstruct the dawn which within his soul
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Speaker 1: of that light which he professes to be the predominant
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Speaker 1: wish of his heart on asking for admission, whilst if
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Speaker 1: really desirous of learning the secrets and mysteries of his
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Speaker 1: own being, he must be prepared to divest himself of
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Speaker 1: all past preconceptions and thought habits, and with childlike meekness
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Speaker 1: and docility, surrender his mind to the reception of some
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Speaker 1: perhaps novel and unexpected truths which initiation promises to impart in,
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Speaker 1: which will more and more unfold and justify themselves within
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Speaker 1: those and those only who are and continue to keep
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Speaker 1: themselves properly prepared for them. Know thyself was the injunction
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Speaker 1: inscribed over the portals of ancient temples of initiation, for
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Speaker 1: with that knowledge was promised the knowledge of all secrets
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Speaker 1: and all mysteries. And masonry was designed to teach self knowledge.
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Speaker 1: But self knowledge involves a knowledge much deeper, vaster, and
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Speaker 1: more difficult than is popularly conceived. It is not to
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Speaker 1: be acquired by the formal passage through three or four
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Speaker 1: degrees in as many months. It is a knowledge impossible
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Speaker 1: of full achievement until knowledge of every other kind has
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Speaker 1: been laid aside. And a difficult path of life, long
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Speaker 1: and strenuously pursued, that alone fits and leads its followers
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Speaker 1: to its attainment. The wisest and most advanced of us
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Speaker 1: is perhaps still but an entered apprentice at this knowledge,
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Speaker 1: however high his titular rank. Herein, there may be one
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Speaker 1: worthy of being hailed as a fellow craft in the
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Speaker 1: true sense, the full master Mason, the just man made perfect,
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Speaker 1: who has actually and not merely ceremonially traveled the entire path,
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Speaker 1: endured all its tests and ordeals, and become raised into
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Speaker 1: conscious union with the author and giver of life, and
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Speaker 1: able to mediate and impart that life to others. Is
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Speaker 1: at all times hard to find, so high, so ideal
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Speaker 1: an attainment, it may be urged, is beyond our reach.
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Speaker 1: We are but ordinary men of the world, sufficiently occupied
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Speaker 1: already with our primary civic, social, and family obligations in
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Speaker 1: following the obvious normal path of natural life. Nevertheless, to
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Speaker 1: point to that attainment as possible to us and as
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Speaker 1: our destiny, to indicate that path of self perfecting to
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Speaker 1: those who care and dare to follow it, modern speculative
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Speaker 1: masonry was instituted, and to emphasizing the fact these papers
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Speaker 1: are devoted for masonry means this, or it means nothing
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Speaker 1: worth the serious pursuit of thoughtful men, nothing that cannot
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Speaker 1: be pursued as well outside the craft as within it.
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Speaker 1: It proclaims the fact that there exists a higher and
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Speaker 1: more secret path of life than that which we normally tread,
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Speaker 1: and that when the outer world and its pursuits and
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Speaker 1: rewards lose their attractiveness for us and prove insufficient to
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Speaker 1: our deeper needs, as sooner or later they will, we
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Speaker 1: are compelled to turn back upon ourselves, to seek and
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Speaker 1: knock at the door of a world within. And it
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Speaker 1: is upon this inner world and the path to and
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Speaker 1: through it, that masonry promises light, charts the way, and
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Speaker 1: indicates the qualifications and conditions of progress. This is the
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Speaker 1: sole aim and intention of masonry, behind its more elementary
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Speaker 1: and obvious symbolism, behind its councils to virtue and conventional morality,
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Speaker 1: Behind the platitudes and sententious phraseology which nowadays might well
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Speaker 1: be subjected to competent and intelligent revision, with which, after
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Speaker 1: the fashion of their day, the eighteenth century compilers of
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Speaker 1: its ceremonies clothed its teaching. There exists the framework of
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Speaker 1: a scheme of initiation into that higher path of life,
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Speaker 1: where alone the secrets and mysteries of our being are
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Speaker 1: to be learned. A scheme moreover, that, as will be
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Speaker 1: shown later in these pages, reproduces for the modern world
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Speaker 1: the main features of the ancient mysteries, and that has
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Speaker 1: been well described by a learned writer on the subject
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Speaker 1: as an epitome or reflection at a far distance of
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Speaker 1: the once universal science. But because for long and for
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Speaker 1: many masonry has meant less than this, it has not
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Speaker 1: as yet fulfilled its original purpose of being the efficient
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Speaker 1: initiating instrument it was designed to be. Its energies have
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Speaker 1: been diverted from its true instructional purpose into social mids
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Speaker 1: philanthropic channels, excellent in their way, but foreign to and
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Speaker 1: accretions upon the primal main intention. Indeed, so little perceived
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Speaker 1: or appreciated is that central intention that one frequently hears
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Speaker 1: it confessed by men of eminent position in the craft
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Speaker 1: and warn devotion to it that only their interest in
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Speaker 1: its great charitable institutions keeps alive. Their connection with the order.
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Speaker 1: Relief is indeed a duty incumbent upon a Mason, but
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Speaker 1: its Masonic interpretation is not meant to be limited to
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Speaker 1: physical necessities. The spiritually as well as the financially poor
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Speaker 1: and distressed, are always with us, and to the former
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Speaker 1: equally with the latter, Masonry was designed to minister. Theoretically,
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Speaker 1: every man, upon reception into the Craft acknowledges himself as
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Speaker 1: within the category of the spiritually poor, and as content
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Speaker 1: to renounce all temporal riches, if haply, by that sacrifice,
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Speaker 1: his hungry heart may be filled with those good things
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Speaker 1: which money cannot purchase, but to which the truly initiated
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Speaker 1: can help him. But if Masonry has not as yet
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Speaker 1: fulfill filled its primary purpose, and though engaged in admirable
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Speaker 1: secondary activities, is as yet an initiating instrument of low efficiency,
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Speaker 1: it may be that, with enlarged understanding of its designs,
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Speaker 1: that efficiency may yet become very considerably increased. During the
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Speaker 1: last two centuries, the Craft has been gradually developing from
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Speaker 1: small and crude beginnings into its present vast and highly
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Speaker 1: elaborated organization. Today, the number of lodges and the membership
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Speaker 1: of the Craft are increasing beyond all precedent. One asks
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Speaker 1: oneself what this growing interest portends, and to what it
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Speaker 1: will or can be made to lead. The growth synchronizes
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Speaker 1: with a corresponding defection of interest in orthodox religion and
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Speaker 1: public worship. It need not now be inquired whether or
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Speaker 1: to what extent the simple principles of faith and the
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Speaker 1: humanitarian ideals of Masonry are with some men taking the
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Speaker 1: place of the theology offered in the various churches. It
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Speaker 1: is probable that to some extent they do so. But
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Speaker 1: the fact is with us that the idea the deals
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Speaker 1: of the Masonic Order are making a wide appeal to
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Speaker 1: the best instincts of large numbers of men, and that
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Speaker 1: the Order has imperceptibly become the greatest social institution in
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Speaker 1: the Empire. Its principles of faith and ethics are simple
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Speaker 1: and of virtually universal acceptance, providing means for the expression
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Speaker 1: of universal fraternity under a common divine fatherhood and of
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Speaker 1: a common loyalty to the headship and established government of
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Speaker 1: the state. It leaves room for divergences of private belief
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Speaker 1: and view upon matters upon which unity is impracticable and
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Speaker 1: perhaps undesirable. It is utterly clean of politics and political intrigue,
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Speaker 1: but nevertheless has unconsciously become a real though unobtrusive asset
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Speaker 1: of political value, both in stabilizing the social fabric intending
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Speaker 1: to foster international amity. The elaborateness of its organization, the
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Speaker 1: care and admirable control of its affairs by its higher
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Speaker 1: authorities are praiseworthy in the extreme, whilst in the conduct
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Speaker 1: of its individual lodges there has been and is a
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Speaker 1: progressive endeavor to raise the standard of ceremonial work to
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Speaker 1: a far higher degree of reverence and intelligence than was
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Speaker 1: perhaps possible under conditions existing not long ago. The Masonic
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Speaker 1: craft has grown and ramified to dimensions undreamed of by
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Speaker 1: its original founders, and at its present rate of increase,
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Speaker 1: its potentialities and influence in the future are quite incalculable.
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Speaker 1: What seems now needed to intensify the worth and usefulness
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Speaker 1: of this great brotherhood is to deepen its understanding of
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Speaker 1: its own system, to educate its members in the deeper
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Speaker 1: meaning and true purpose of its rights and its philosophy.
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Speaker 1: Were this achieved, the Masonic Order would become, in proportion
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Speaker 1: to that achievement, a spiritual force greater than it can
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Speaker 1: ever be, so long as it continues content with a
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Speaker 1: formal and unintelligent perpetuation of rights, the real and sacred
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Speaker 1: purpose of which remains largely unperceived, and participation in which
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Speaker 1: too often means nothing more than association with an agreeable
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Speaker 1: semi religious social institution carried to its fullest, that as
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Speaker 1: achievement would involve the revival in a form adapted to
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Speaker 1: modern conditions of the ancient wisdom, teaching and the practice
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Speaker 1: of those mysteries which became proscribed fifteen centuries ago, but
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Speaker 1: of which modern Masonry is the direct and representative descendant.
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Speaker 1: As will appear later in these pages, the future development
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Speaker 1: and the value of the Order as a moral force
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Speaker 1: in society depend therefore, upon the view its members take
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Speaker 1: of their system. If they do not spiritualize it, they
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Speaker 1: will but increasingly materialize it. If they fail to interpret
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Speaker 1: its veiled purport, to enter into the understanding of its
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Speaker 1: underlying philosophy, and to translate its symbolism into what is signified. Thereby,
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Speaker 1: they will be mistaking shadow for substance, a husk for
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Speaker 1: the colonel, and secularizing what was designed as a means
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Speaker 1: of spiritual instruction and grace. It is from lack of instruction,
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Speaker 1: rather than of desire to learn the meaning of masonry
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Speaker 1: that the craft suffers today, But as one finds everywhere
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Speaker 1: that desire exists, and so for what they may be worth,
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Speaker 1: these papers are offered to the craft as a contribution
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Speaker 1: towards satisfying it. Let me conclude with an apolog and
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Speaker 1: an aspiration. In the Chronicles of Israel, it may be
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Speaker 1: read how that after long preparatory labor, after employing the
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Speaker 1: choicest material and the most skillful artificers, Solomon the King
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Speaker 1: at last made an end of building, in beautifying his temple,
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Speaker 1: and dedicated to the service of the most High that
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Speaker 1: work of his hands in a state as perfect as
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Speaker 1: human provision could make it. And how that then, but
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Speaker 1: not till then, his offering was accepted, and the acceptance
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Speaker 1: was signified by a divine descent upon it, so that
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Speaker 1: the glory of the Lord shown through and filled the
20:41
Speaker 1: whole house. So, if we will have it, so may
20:45
Speaker 1: it be with the Temple of the Masonic Order. Since
20:48
Speaker 1: the inception of speculative masonry, it has been a building
20:51
Speaker 1: and expanding now these last three hundred years, fashioned of
20:55
Speaker 1: living stones into a far reaching organic structure, brought gradually
21:00
Speaker 1: under the good guidance of its rulers to high perfection
21:02
Speaker 1: on its temporal side, and in respect of its external observances,
21:06
Speaker 1: and made available for high purposes, and giving godly witness
21:09
Speaker 1: in a dark and troubled world. Upon these preliminary efforts,
21:13
Speaker 1: let there now be invoked this crowning and completing blessing,
21:16
Speaker 1: that the spirit of wisdom and understanding may descend upon
21:19
Speaker 1: the work of our hands in abundant measure, prospering it
21:23
Speaker 1: still farther and filling and transfiguring our whole. Masonic House,
21:28
Speaker 1: Chapter one, The deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry. Candidate proposing to
21:34
Speaker 1: enter Freemasonry has seldom formed any definite idea of the
21:37
Speaker 1: nature of what he is engaging in. Even after his admission,
21:41
Speaker 1: he usually remains quite at a loss to explain satisfactorily
21:44
Speaker 1: what masonry is and for what purpose his order exists.
21:49
Speaker 1: He finds, indeed, that it is a system of morality
21:52
Speaker 1: veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. But that explanation,
21:56
Speaker 1: whilst true, is but partial and does not carry him
21:59
Speaker 1: very far. For many members of the craft, to be
22:03
Speaker 1: a Mason implies merely connection with a body which seems
22:06
Speaker 1: to be something combining the natures of a club and
22:08
Speaker 1: a benefit society. They find, of course a certain religious
22:13
Speaker 1: element in it. But as they are told that religious discussion,
22:16
Speaker 1: which means, of course sectarian religious discussion, is forbidden in
22:21
Speaker 1: the lodge, they infer that Masonry is not a religious institution,
22:25
Speaker 1: and that its teachings are intended to be merely secondary
22:28
Speaker 1: and supplemental to any religious tenets they may happen to hold.
22:32
Speaker 1: One sometimes hears it remark that Masonry is not a religion,
22:36
Speaker 1: which in a sense is quite true, and sometimes that
22:39
Speaker 1: it is a secondary or supplementary religion, which is quite untrue. Again,
22:44
Speaker 1: Masonry is often supposed, even by its own members, to
22:48
Speaker 1: be a system of extreme antiquity that was practiced and
22:51
Speaker 1: that has come down in well nigh its present form
22:53
Speaker 1: from Egyptian or at least from early Hebrew sources, a
22:56
Speaker 1: view which again possesses the merest modicum of truth. In brief,
23:01
Speaker 1: the vaguest notions obtain about the origin and history of
23:04
Speaker 1: the craft, whilst the still more vital subject of its
23:07
Speaker 1: immediate and present purpose and of its possibilities remains almost
23:12
Speaker 1: entirely outside the consciousness of many of its own members.
23:16
Speaker 1: We meet in our lodges regularly we perform our ceremonial
23:19
Speaker 1: work and repeat our catechetical instruction lectures night after night
23:23
Speaker 1: with a less or greater degree of intelligence and verbal perfection.
23:27
Speaker 1: And there are work ends, as though the ability to
23:29
Speaker 1: perform this work creditably were the be all and the
23:32
Speaker 1: end all of Masonic work. Seldom or never do we
23:35
Speaker 1: employ our lodge meetings for that purpose for which, quite
23:38
Speaker 1: as much as for ceremonial purposes, they were intended, viz.
23:42
Speaker 1: For expatiating on the mysteries of the craft. And perhaps
23:45
Speaker 1: our neglect to do so is because we have ourselves
23:48
Speaker 1: imperfectly realized what those mysteries are into which our order
23:51
Speaker 1: was primarily formed to introduce us. Yet there exists a
23:55
Speaker 1: large number of brethren who would willingly repair this obvious
23:58
Speaker 1: deficiency breath, and to whose Nature's Masonry, even in their
24:02
Speaker 1: more limited aspect of it, makes a profound appeal, and
24:05
Speaker 1: who feel their membership of the craft to be a
24:07
Speaker 1: privilege which has brought them into the presence of something
24:10
Speaker 1: greater than they know, and that in shrines a purpose
24:12
Speaker 1: and that could unfold a message deeper than they at
24:15
Speaker 1: present realize. In a brief address like this, it is
24:18
Speaker 1: hopeless to attempt to deal at all adequately with what
24:21
Speaker 1: I have suggested are deficiencies in our knowledge of the
24:23
Speaker 1: system we belong to. The most one can hope to
24:27
Speaker 1: do is to offer a few hints or clues which
24:30
Speaker 1: those who so desire may develop for themselves in the
24:32
Speaker 1: privacy of their own thought. For in the last resource,
24:36
Speaker 1: no one can communicate the deeper things in masonry to another.
24:40
Speaker 1: Every man must discover and learn them for himself, although
24:43
Speaker 1: a friend or brother may be able to conduct him
24:46
Speaker 1: a certain distance on the path of understanding. We know
24:49
Speaker 1: that even the elementary in superficial secrets of the order
24:52
Speaker 1: must not be communicated to unqualified persons. And the reason
24:55
Speaker 1: for this injunction is not so much because those secrets
24:59
Speaker 1: have any special value, but because that silence is intended
25:02
Speaker 1: to be typical of that which applies to the greater,
25:04
Speaker 1: deeper secrets, some of which for appropriate reasons must not
25:08
Speaker 1: be communicated, and some of which indeed are not communicable
25:12
Speaker 1: at all, because they transcend the power of communication. It
25:16
Speaker 1: is well to emphasize, then, at the outset, that masonry
25:20
Speaker 1: is a sacramental system, possessing, like all sacraments, an outward
25:24
Speaker 1: and visible side, consisting of its ceremonial, its doctrine, and
25:28
Speaker 1: its symbols, which we can see and hear, and an inward,
25:31
Speaker 1: intellectual and spiritual side, which is concealed behind the ceremonial,
25:35
Speaker 1: the doctrine, and the symbols, and which is available only
25:39
Speaker 1: to the Mason who has learned to use his spiritual imagination,
25:42
Speaker 1: and who can appreciate the reality that lies behind them
25:45
Speaker 1: veil of outward symbol. Anyone, of course, can understand the
25:50
Speaker 1: simpler meaning of our symbols, especially with the help of
25:53
Speaker 1: the explanatory lectures, but he may still miss the meaning
25:56
Speaker 1: of the scheme as a vital whole. It is absurd
25:59
Speaker 1: to think that a vast organization like masonry was ordained
26:03
Speaker 1: merely to teach to grown up men of the world
26:05
Speaker 1: the symbolical meaning of a few simple builder's tools, or
26:08
Speaker 1: to impress upon us such elementary virtues as temperance and justice.
26:12
Speaker 1: The children in every village school are taught such things,
26:16
Speaker 1: or to enforce such simple principles of morals as brotherly love,
26:20
Speaker 1: which every church and every religion teaches, or as relief,
26:24
Speaker 1: which is practiced quite as much by non Masons as
26:26
Speaker 1: by us, or of truth, which every infant learns upon
26:31
Speaker 1: its mother's knee. There is surely two no need for
26:35
Speaker 1: us to join a secret society to be taught that
26:37
Speaker 1: the volume of the Sacred Law is a fountain of
26:40
Speaker 1: truth and instruction, or to go through the great and
26:42
Speaker 1: elaborate ceremony of the third degree, merely to learn that
26:45
Speaker 1: we have each to die. The craft whose work we
26:48
Speaker 1: are taught to honor with the name of a science,
26:51
Speaker 1: royal art has surely some larger and in view than
26:54
Speaker 1: merely inculcating the practice of social virtues common to all
26:58
Speaker 1: the world, and by no means the min upoly of freemasons. Surely,
27:02
Speaker 1: then it beholds us to acquaint ourselves with what that
27:06
Speaker 1: larger end consists, to inquire why the fulfillment of that
27:09
Speaker 1: purpose is worthy to be called a science, and to
27:12
Speaker 1: ascertain what are those mysteries to which our doctrine promises
27:15
Speaker 1: we may ultimately attain if we apply ourselves assiduously enough
27:19
Speaker 1: to understanding what masonry is capable of teaching us. Realizing
27:24
Speaker 1: then what masonry cannot be deemed to be. Let us
27:27
Speaker 1: ask what it is. But before answering that question, let
27:31
Speaker 1: me put you in possession of certain facts that will
27:33
Speaker 1: enable you the better to appreciate the answer when I
27:35
Speaker 1: formulate it. In all periods of the world's history, and
27:39
Speaker 1: in every part of the globe, secret orders and societies
27:43
Speaker 1: have existed outside the limits of the official churches, for
27:46
Speaker 1: the purpose of teaching what are called the mysteries, for
27:49
Speaker 1: imparting to suitable and prepared minds certain truths of human life,
27:53
Speaker 1: certain instructions about divine things, about the things that belong
27:56
Speaker 1: to our peace, about human nature and human destiny, which
28:00
Speaker 1: it was undesirable to publish to the multitude, who would
28:03
Speaker 1: but profane those teachings and apply the esoteric knowledge that
28:07
Speaker 1: was communicated to perverse and perhaps to disastrous ends. These
28:12
Speaker 1: mysteries were formerly taught, we are told, on the highest
28:15
Speaker 1: hills and in the lowest valleys, which is merely a
28:18
Speaker 1: figure of speech for saying first that they have been
28:21
Speaker 1: taught in circumstances of the greatest seclusion in secrecy, and
28:24
Speaker 1: secondly that they have been taught in both advanced and
28:27
Speaker 1: simple forms, according to the understanding of their disciples. It
28:31
Speaker 1: is of course common knowledge that great secret systems of
28:35
Speaker 1: the mysteries referred to in our lectures as noble orders
28:38
Speaker 1: of architecture i e. Of sole building existed in the East,
28:43
Speaker 1: in Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, amongst the Hebrews, amongst Mahommedans,
28:49
Speaker 1: and amongst Christians. Even among uncivilized African races, they are
28:53
Speaker 1: to be found. All the great teachers of humanity, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Roses, Aristotle, Virgil,
29:02
Speaker 1: the author of the Homeric poems, and the great Greek Tragedians,
29:06
Speaker 1: along with Saint John, Saint Paul, and innumerable other great names,
29:10
Speaker 1: were initiates of the sacred mysteries. The form of the
29:13
Speaker 1: teaching communicated has varied considerably from age to age. It
29:17
Speaker 1: has been expressed under different veils. But since the ultimate
29:20
Speaker 1: truth the mysteries aim at teaching is always one and
29:23
Speaker 1: the same, there has always been taught, and can only
29:26
Speaker 1: be taught, one and the same doctrine. What that doctrine
29:30
Speaker 1: was and still is, we will consider presently, so far
29:34
Speaker 1: as we are able to speak of it, and so
29:36
Speaker 1: far as masonry gives expression to it. For the moment,
29:39
Speaker 1: let me merely say that behind all the official religious
29:42
Speaker 1: systems of the world, and behind all the great moral
29:45
Speaker 1: movements and developments in the history of humanity have stood
29:49
Speaker 1: what Saint Paul called the keepers or stewards of the mysteries.
29:53
Speaker 1: From that source, Christianity itself came into the world. From
29:57
Speaker 1: them originated the Great School of Cabalism, that marvelous system
30:01
Speaker 1: of secret oral tradition of the Hebrews, a strong element
30:04
Speaker 1: of which has been introduced into our masonic system. From
30:08
Speaker 1: them too also issued many fraternities and orders, such for
30:13
Speaker 1: instance as the Great Orders of Chivalry and of the Rosicrucians,
30:17
Speaker 1: and the School of Spiritual Alchemy. Lastly, from them too,
30:21
Speaker 1: also issued in the seventeenth century modern speculative freemasonry. To
30:26
Speaker 1: trace the genesis of the movement, which came into activity
30:30
Speaker 1: some two hundred and fifty years ago, our rituals and ceremonies,
30:33
Speaker 1: having been compiled round about the year seventeen hundred, is
30:37
Speaker 1: beyond the purpose of my present remarks. It may merely
30:40
Speaker 1: be stated that the movement itself incorporated the slender ritual
30:44
Speaker 1: and the elementary symbolism that for centuries previously had been
30:48
Speaker 1: employed in connection with the medieval building guilds. But it
30:51
Speaker 1: gave to them a far fuller meaning in a far
30:53
Speaker 1: wider scope. It has always been the custom for trade guilds,
30:58
Speaker 1: and even for modern friendly society, to spiritualize their trades
31:02
Speaker 1: and to make the tools of their trade points some
31:04
Speaker 1: simple moral No trade perhaps lends itself more readily to
31:09
Speaker 1: such treatment than the builder's trade. But wherever a great
31:12
Speaker 1: industry has flourished, there you will find traces of that
31:15
Speaker 1: industry becoming allegorized, and of the allegory being employed for
31:19
Speaker 1: the simple moral instruction of those who were operative members
31:22
Speaker 1: of the industry. I am acquainted, for instance, with an
31:26
Speaker 1: Egyptian ceremonial system some five thousand years old, which taught
31:30
Speaker 1: precisely the same things as masonry does, but in the
31:33
Speaker 1: terms of shipbuilding instead of in the terms of architecture.
31:37
Speaker 1: But the terms of architecture were employed by those who
31:40
Speaker 1: originated modern masonry, because they were ready to hand, because
31:43
Speaker 1: they were in use among certain trade guilds then in existence,
31:47
Speaker 1: and lastly, because they are extremely effective and significant. From
31:50
Speaker 1: the symbolic point of view. All that I wish to
31:54
Speaker 1: emphasize at this stage is that our present system is
31:57
Speaker 1: not one coming from remote antiquity, that there is no
32:00
Speaker 1: direct continuity between us and the Egyptians, or even those
32:03
Speaker 1: ancient Hebrews who built, in the reign of King Solomon
32:06
Speaker 1: a certain temple at Jerusalem. What is extremely ancient in
32:11
Speaker 1: Freemasonry is the spiritual doctrine concealed within the architectural phraseology.
32:16
Speaker 1: For this doctrine is an elementary form of the doctrine
32:18
Speaker 1: that has been taught in all ages, no matter in
32:21
Speaker 1: what garbage has been expressed. Our own teaching, for instance,
32:26
Speaker 1: recognizes Pythagoras as having undergone numerous initiations in different parts
32:30
Speaker 1: of the world, and as having attained great eminence in
32:33
Speaker 1: the science. Now it is perfectly certain that Pythagoras was
32:37
Speaker 1: not a Mason at all in our present sense of
32:39
Speaker 1: the word. But it is also perfectly certain that Pythagoras
32:42
Speaker 1: was a very highly advanced master in the knowledge of
32:45
Speaker 1: the secret schools of the mysteries of whose doctrine some
32:48
Speaker 1: small portion is enshrined for us in our Masonic system.
32:52
Speaker 1: What then, was the purpose the framers of our Masonic
32:54
Speaker 1: system had in view when they compiled it. To this question,
32:58
Speaker 1: you will find no satisfying, dying answer in ordinary Masonic books. Indeed,
33:03
Speaker 1: there is nothing more dreary in dismal than Masonic literature.
33:06
Speaker 1: In Masonic histories, which are usually devoted to considering merely
33:10
Speaker 1: unessential matters relating to the external development of the craft
33:14
Speaker 1: and to its antiquarian aspect, they fail entirely to deal
33:18
Speaker 1: with its vital meaning in essence, a failure that in
33:21
Speaker 1: some cases may be intentional, but that more often seems
33:25
Speaker 1: due to lack of knowledge and perception, For the true
33:28
Speaker 1: inner history of Masonry has never yet been given forth,
33:31
Speaker 1: even to the craft itself. There are members of the
33:34
Speaker 1: craft to whom it is familiar, and who, in due
33:36
Speaker 1: time may feel justified in gradually making public, at any rate,
33:40
Speaker 1: some portion of what is known in interior circles. But
33:43
Speaker 1: ere that time comes, and that the craft itself may
33:46
Speaker 1: the better appreciate what can be told, It is desirable,
33:50
Speaker 1: nay even necessary, that its own members should make some
33:53
Speaker 1: effort to realize the meaning of their own institution, and
33:56
Speaker 1: should display symptoms of earnest desire to treat it less
33:59
Speaker 1: as assistance of archaic and perfunctory rights and more as
34:02
Speaker 1: a vital reality, capable of entering into and dominating their lives,
34:07
Speaker 1: less as a merely pleasant social order, and more as
34:09
Speaker 1: a sacred and serious method of initiation into the profoundest
34:14
Speaker 1: truths of life. It is written that to him that
34:16
Speaker 1: hath shall be given, and from him that hath not
34:19
Speaker 1: shall be taken away, even at which he hath. And
34:21
Speaker 1: it remains with the craft itself to determine by its
34:24
Speaker 1: own action whether it shall enter into its full heritage,
34:27
Speaker 1: or whether, by failing to realize and to safeguard the
34:30
Speaker 1: value of what it possesses, by suffering its own mysteries
34:33
Speaker 1: to be vulgarized and profaned, its organization will degenerate and
34:37
Speaker 1: pass into disrepute and deserved oblivion, as has been the
34:41
Speaker 1: fate of many secret orders in the past. There are signs, however,
34:46
Speaker 1: of a well nigh universal increase of interest, of a
34:49
Speaker 1: genuine desire for knowledge of the spiritual content of our
34:52
Speaker 1: Masonic system. And I am glad to be able to
34:55
Speaker 1: offer to my brethren some light and imperfect outline of
34:58
Speaker 1: what I conceive to be the true purpose of our work,
35:00
Speaker 1: which may tend to deepen their interest in the work
35:03
Speaker 1: of the order they belong to, and what is of
35:05
Speaker 1: more moments, still help to make Masonry for them a
35:08
Speaker 1: vital factor and a living, serious reality, rather than a
35:13
Speaker 1: mere pleasurable appendage to social life. To state things briefly,
35:18
Speaker 1: Masonry offers us, in dramatic form and by means of
35:21
Speaker 1: dramatic ceremonial, a philosophy of the spiritual life of man,
35:25
Speaker 1: in a diagram of the process of regeneration. We shall
35:29
Speaker 1: see presently that that philosophy is not only consistent with
35:32
Speaker 1: the doctrine of every religious system taught outside the ranks
35:35
Speaker 1: of the order, but that it explains, elucidates, and more
35:39
Speaker 1: sharply defines the fundamental doctrines common to every religious system
35:43
Speaker 1: in the world, whether past or present, whether Christian or
35:46
Speaker 1: non Christian. The religions of the world, though all aiming
35:51
Speaker 1: at teaching truth, express that truth in different ways, and
35:54
Speaker 1: we are more prone to emphasize the differences than to
35:57
Speaker 1: look for the correspondences in what they teach. In some
36:00
Speaker 1: Masonic lodges, the candidate makes his first entrance to the
36:04
Speaker 1: lodge room amid the clash of swords and the sounds
36:06
Speaker 1: of strife, to intimate to him that he is leaving
36:09
Speaker 1: the confusion and jarring of the religious sects of the
36:12
Speaker 1: exterior world, and is passing into a temple wherein the
36:15
Speaker 1: brethren dwell together in unity of thought in regard to
36:18
Speaker 1: the basal truths of life, truths which can permit of
36:21
Speaker 1: no difference or schism. Allied with no external religious system itself,
36:26
Speaker 1: Masonry is yet a synthesis, a concordat for men of
36:29
Speaker 1: every race, of every creed, of every sect, and its
36:33
Speaker 1: foundation principles being common to them, all admit of no variation.
36:38
Speaker 1: As it was in the beginning, so it is now
36:40
Speaker 1: and ever shall be into the ages of ages. Hence
36:44
Speaker 1: it is that every master of a lodge is called
36:46
Speaker 1: upon to swear that no innovation in the body of
36:49
Speaker 1: Masonry i e. In its substantial doctrine is possible, since
36:53
Speaker 1: it already contains a minimum and yet a sufficiency of truth,
36:57
Speaker 1: which none may add to nor alter, and from which
37:00
Speaker 1: which none may take away. And since the order accords
37:02
Speaker 1: perfect liberty of opinion to all men, the truths it
37:05
Speaker 1: has to offer are entirely free to us, according to
37:09
Speaker 1: our capacity to assimilate them. Whilst those to whom they
37:12
Speaker 1: do not appeal, those who think they can find a
37:15
Speaker 1: more sufficing philosophy elsewhere, are equally at liberty to be
37:19
Speaker 1: free from them. And men of honor will find it
37:21
Speaker 1: their duty to withdraw from the order, rather than suffer
37:24
Speaker 1: the harmony of thought that should characterize the craft to
37:26
Speaker 1: be disturbed by their presence. The admission of every mason
37:30
Speaker 1: into the order is, we are taught, an emblematical representation
37:34
Speaker 1: of the entrance of all men upon this mortal existence.
37:38
Speaker 1: Let us reflect a little upon these pregnant words, to
37:42
Speaker 1: those deep, persistent questionings which present themselves to every thinking mind.
37:46
Speaker 1: What am I? Whence come I? Whither go I? Masonry
37:51
Speaker 1: offers emphatic and luminous answers each of us. It tells
37:55
Speaker 1: us has come from that mystical East, the eternal source
37:58
Speaker 1: of all light and life, and our life here is
38:01
Speaker 1: described as being spent in the west, that is, in
38:04
Speaker 1: a world which is the antipodes of our original home,
38:07
Speaker 1: and under conditions of existence as far removed from those
38:10
Speaker 1: we came from, and to which we are returning, as
38:13
Speaker 1: is west from east in our ordinary computation of space. Hence,
38:17
Speaker 1: every candidate, upon admission finds himself in a state of
38:20
Speaker 1: darkness in the west of the lodge. Thereby he is
38:24
Speaker 1: repeating symbolically the incident of his actual birth into this world,
38:28
Speaker 1: which he entered as a blind and helpless babe, and
38:31
Speaker 1: through which in his early years, not knowing whither he
38:34
Speaker 1: was going, after many stumbling in irregular steps, after many
38:38
Speaker 1: deviations from the true path, and after many tribulations and
38:41
Speaker 1: adversities incident to human life, he may at length ascend,
38:45
Speaker 1: purified and chastened by experience, to larger life in the
38:48
Speaker 1: eternal East. Hence, in the e a degree, we ask,
38:53
Speaker 1: as a mason, whence come you, And the answer, coming
38:56
Speaker 1: from an apprentice, i e. From the natural man of
38:59
Speaker 1: undeveloped noulge, is from the West, since he supposes that
39:02
Speaker 1: his life has originated in this world. But in the
39:06
Speaker 1: advanced degree of m m the answer is that he
39:09
Speaker 1: comes from the East. For by this time the mason
39:12
Speaker 1: is supposed to have so enlarged his knowledge as to
39:14
Speaker 1: realize that the primal source of life is not in
39:17
Speaker 1: the West, not in this world, that existence upon this
39:20
Speaker 1: planet is but a transitory sojourn spent in search of
39:24
Speaker 1: the genuine secrets, the ultimate realities of life, and that
39:28
Speaker 1: as the spirit of man, must return to God who
39:30
Speaker 1: gave it. So he is now returning from this temporary
39:33
Speaker 1: world of substituted secrets to that beast from which he
39:37
Speaker 1: originally came as the admission of every candidate into a
39:41
Speaker 1: lodge presupposes his prior existence in the world without the lodge.
39:45
Speaker 1: So our doctrine presupposes that every soul born into this
39:48
Speaker 1: world has lived in and has come hither from an
39:51
Speaker 1: anterior state of life. It has lived elsewhere before it
39:55
Speaker 1: entered this world, it will live elsewhere when it passes. Hence,
39:59
Speaker 1: human life being being but a parenthesis in the midst
40:01
Speaker 1: of eternity. But upon entering this world, the soul must
40:05
Speaker 1: needs assume material form. In other words, it takes upon
40:09
Speaker 1: itself a physical body to enable it to enter into
40:11
Speaker 1: relations with the physical world and to perform the functions
40:14
Speaker 1: appropriate to it in this particular phase of its career.
40:18
Speaker 1: Need I say that the physical form with which we
40:21
Speaker 1: have all been invested by the Creator upon our entrance
40:23
Speaker 1: into this world, and of which we shall all divest
40:26
Speaker 1: ourselves when we leave the lodge of this life, is
40:28
Speaker 1: represented among us by our masonic apron This our body
40:33
Speaker 1: of mortality, this veil of flesh and blood clothing the
40:36
Speaker 1: inner soul of us. This is the real badge of innocence,
40:39
Speaker 1: the common bond of friendship with which the Great architect
40:42
Speaker 1: has been pleased to invest us all this. The human
40:45
Speaker 1: body is the badge, which is older and nobler than
40:48
Speaker 1: that of any other order in existence. And though it
40:51
Speaker 1: be but a body of humiliation compared with that body
40:54
Speaker 1: of incorruption, which is the promised inheritance of him who
40:57
Speaker 1: endures to the end, let us never forget that if
41:01
Speaker 1: we never do anything to disgrace the badge of flesh
41:03
Speaker 1: with which God has endowed each of us, that badge
41:06
Speaker 1: will never disgrace us. Brethren, I charge you to regard
41:10
Speaker 1: your apron as one of the most precious and speaking
41:13
Speaker 1: symbols our order has to give you. Remember that when
41:16
Speaker 1: you first wore it, it was a piece of pure
41:18
Speaker 1: white lambskin, an emblem of that purity and innocence which
41:21
Speaker 1: we always associate with the lamb and with the new
41:24
Speaker 1: born child. Remember that you first wore it with the
41:27
Speaker 1: flap raised. It being thus a five cornered badge, indicating
41:31
Speaker 1: the five senses by means of which we enter into
41:34
Speaker 1: relations with the material world around us, our five points
41:37
Speaker 1: of fellowship with the material world, but indicating also by
41:41
Speaker 1: the triangular portion above, in conjunction with the quadrangular portion below,
41:46
Speaker 1: that man's nature is a combination of soul and body.
41:49
Speaker 1: The three sided emblem at the top added to the
41:51
Speaker 1: four sided emblem beneath, making seven the perfect number. For,
41:56
Speaker 1: as it is written in an ancient Hebrew doctrine with
41:58
Speaker 1: which masonry is closely allied, God blessed and loved the
42:02
Speaker 1: number seven more than all things under his throne, by
42:05
Speaker 1: which is meant that man, the sevenfold being, is the
42:08
Speaker 1: most cherished of all the Creator's works. And hence also
42:12
Speaker 1: it is that the lodge has seven principal officers, and
42:15
Speaker 1: that a lodge to be perfect requires the presence of
42:18
Speaker 1: seven brethren. Though the deeper meaning of this phrase is
42:21
Speaker 1: that the individual man, in virtue of his sevenfold constitution
42:25
Speaker 1: in himself, constitutes the perfect lodge, if he will but
42:29
Speaker 1: know himself and analyze his own nature aright. To each
42:33
Speaker 1: of us, also, from our birth, have been given three
42:35
Speaker 1: lesser lights by which the lodge within ourselves may be illumined.
42:40
Speaker 1: For the sun symbolizes our spiritual consciousness, the higher aspirations
42:44
Speaker 1: and emotions of the soul. The moon betokens our reasoning
42:48
Speaker 1: or intellectual faculties, which, as the moon reflects the light
42:52
Speaker 1: of the sun, should reflect the light coming from the
42:54
Speaker 1: higher spiritual faculty and transmitted into our daily conduct. Whilst
42:59
Speaker 1: the Master of the life is a symbolical phrase denoting
43:02
Speaker 1: the will power of man, which should enable him to
43:04
Speaker 1: be master of his own life, to control his own
43:07
Speaker 1: actions and keep down the impulses of his lower nature,
43:11
Speaker 1: even as the stroke of the master's gavel controls the
43:14
Speaker 1: lodge and calls to order and obedience the brethren under
43:17
Speaker 1: his direction. By the assistance of these lesser lights within us,
43:21
Speaker 1: a man is enabled to perceive what is again symbolically
43:25
Speaker 1: called the form of the lodge, i e. The way
43:28
Speaker 1: in which his own human nature has been composed and constituted,
43:31
Speaker 1: the length, breadth, height, and depth of his own being.
43:35
Speaker 1: By their help, too, he will perceive that he himself,
43:39
Speaker 1: his body, and his soul are wholly ground upon which
43:42
Speaker 1: he should build the altar of his own spiritual life,
43:45
Speaker 1: an altar which he should suffer no iron tool, no
43:48
Speaker 1: debasing habit of thought or conduct to defile. By them, two,
43:53
Speaker 1: he will perceive how wisdom, strength, and beauty have been
43:56
Speaker 1: employed by the Creator like three grand supporting pillars in
44:00
Speaker 1: the structure of his own organism, and by these finally
44:03
Speaker 1: he will discern, how that there is a mystical ladder
44:06
Speaker 1: of many rounds or staves, I e. That there are
44:09
Speaker 1: innumerable paths or methods by means of which men are
44:12
Speaker 1: led upwards to the spiritual light encircling us all, and
44:16
Speaker 1: in which we live and move and have our being.
44:18
Speaker 1: But that of the three principal methods, the greatest of these,
44:21
Speaker 1: the one that comprehends them all and brings us nearest Heaven,
44:25
Speaker 1: is Love, in the full exercise of which god like
44:28
Speaker 1: virtue a mason reaches the summit of his profession, that
44:32
Speaker 1: summit being God Himself, whose name is Love. I cannot
44:37
Speaker 1: too strongly impress upon you, brethren, the fact that, throughout
44:41
Speaker 1: our rituals and our lectures, the references made to the
44:44
Speaker 1: lodge are not to the building in which we meet.
44:47
Speaker 1: That building itself is intended to be but a symbol,
44:50
Speaker 1: a veale of allegory, concealing something else. Know ye not,
44:54
Speaker 1: says the Great Initiate Saint Paul, that ye are the
44:57
Speaker 1: temples of the Most High, and that the Spirit of
44:59
Speaker 1: God dwells you. The real lodge referred to throughout our
45:03
Speaker 1: rituals is our own individual personalities. And if we interpret
45:07
Speaker 1: our doctrine in the light of this fact, we shall
45:09
Speaker 1: find that it reveals an entirely new aspect of the
45:11
Speaker 1: purpose of our craft. It is after investment with the
45:15
Speaker 1: apron that the initiate is placed in the any corner.
45:18
Speaker 1: Thereby he is intended to learn that, at his birth
45:21
Speaker 1: into this world, the foundation stone of his spiritual life
45:24
Speaker 1: was duly and truly laid and implanted within himself, and
45:27
Speaker 1: he is charged to develop it, to create a superstructure
45:30
Speaker 1: upon it. Two paths are open to him at this stage,
45:34
Speaker 1: a path of light in a path of darkness, a
45:37
Speaker 1: path of good and a path of evil. The any
45:40
Speaker 1: corner is the symbolical dividing place between the two. In
45:44
Speaker 1: symbolical language, the north always signifies the place of imperfection
45:48
Speaker 1: and undevelopment. In olden times, the bodies of suicides, reprobates,
45:53
Speaker 1: and unbaptized children were always buried in the north or
45:56
Speaker 1: sunless side of a churchyard. The seat of the junior
45:59
Speaker 1: men members of the craft is allotted to the north,
46:02
Speaker 1: for symbolically it represents the condition of the spiritually unenlightened man,
46:07
Speaker 1: the novice, in whom the spiritual light latent within him
46:10
Speaker 1: has not yet risen above the horizon of consciousness and
46:13
Speaker 1: dispersed the clouds of material interests and the impulses of
46:16
Speaker 1: the lower and merely sensual life. The initiate, placed in
46:20
Speaker 1: the any corner, is intended to see, then, that on
46:23
Speaker 1: the one side of him is the path that leads
46:25
Speaker 1: to the perpetual light of the East, into which he
46:28
Speaker 1: is encouraged to proceed, and that on the other is
46:31
Speaker 1: that of spiritual obscurity and ignorance, into which it is
46:34
Speaker 1: possible for him to remain or relapse. It is a
46:37
Speaker 1: parable of the dual paths of life open to each
46:40
Speaker 1: one of us, on the one hand, the path of selfishness,
46:43
Speaker 1: material desires and sensual indulgence, of intellectual blindness and moral stagnation.
46:48
Speaker 1: On the other, the path of moral and spiritual progress,
46:51
Speaker 1: in pursuing which one may decorate and adorn the lodge
46:54
Speaker 1: within him with the ornaments and jewels of grace, and
46:57
Speaker 1: with the invaluable furniture of true knowledge, and which he
47:00
Speaker 1: may dedicate in all his actions to the service of
47:03
Speaker 1: God and of his fellow men, and mark that of
47:06
Speaker 1: those jewels. Some are said to be movable and transferable,
47:10
Speaker 1: because when displayed in our own lives and natures. Their
47:12
Speaker 1: influence becomes transferred and communicated to others, and helps to
47:16
Speaker 1: uplift and sweeten the lives of our fellows, whilst some
47:19
Speaker 1: are immovable because they are permanently fixed and planted in
47:22
Speaker 1: the roots of our own being, and are indeed the
47:24
Speaker 1: raw material which has been entrusted to us to work
47:27
Speaker 1: out of chaos and roughness into due and true form.
47:31
Speaker 1: The ceremony of our first degree, then, is a swift
47:34
Speaker 1: and comprehensive portrayal of the entrance of all men into
47:38
Speaker 1: first physical life, and second into spiritual life. And as
47:42
Speaker 1: we extend congratulations when a child is born into the world,
47:46
Speaker 1: so also we receive with acclamation the candidate for masonry,
47:49
Speaker 1: who symbolically is seeking for spiritual rebirth. And herein we
47:54
Speaker 1: emulate what is written of the joy that exists among
47:56
Speaker 1: the angels of Heaven over every sinner who repents and
47:59
Speaker 1: turns towards the light. The first degree is also eminently
48:03
Speaker 1: the degree of preparation of self, discipline and purification. It
48:08
Speaker 1: corresponds with that symbolical cleansing accorded in the sacrament of baptism,
48:13
Speaker 1: which in the churches is, so to speak, the first
48:16
Speaker 1: degree in the religious life, and which is administered appropriately
48:20
Speaker 1: at the font near the entrance of the church, even
48:23
Speaker 1: as the act itself takes place at the entrance of
48:26
Speaker 1: the spiritual career. For to all of us, such initial
48:29
Speaker 1: cleansing and purifying is necessary. As has been beautifully written
48:34
Speaker 1: by a fellow worker in the craft, tis scarcely true
48:38
Speaker 1: that souls come naked down to take a boat up
48:40
Speaker 1: in this earthly town, or naked pass of all they
48:43
Speaker 1: were denied. We enter slip shot and with clothes awry,
48:47
Speaker 1: and we take with us much that bianby may prove
48:50
Speaker 1: no easy task to put aside. Cleanse Therefore, that which
48:55
Speaker 1: round about us clings, we pray thee Master ere thy
48:58
Speaker 1: sacred halls we enter, strip us of redundant things, and
49:02
Speaker 1: meetly clothe us in pontificals in the schools of the Mysteries,
49:07
Speaker 1: when aspirants for the higher life were wont to quit
49:10
Speaker 1: the outer world in enter temples or sanctuaries of initiation,
49:13
Speaker 1: prolonged periods were allotted to the practical achievement of what
49:16
Speaker 1: is briefly summarized in our first degree. We are told
49:20
Speaker 1: seven or more years was the normal period, though less
49:23
Speaker 1: sufficed in worthy cases, the most severe tests of discipline,
49:28
Speaker 1: of purity of self balance were required before a neophyte
49:31
Speaker 1: was permitted to pass forward, and a reminiscence of these
49:34
Speaker 1: tests of fitness is preserved in our own working by
49:37
Speaker 1: the conducting of the candidate to the two wardens and
49:40
Speaker 1: submitting him to a merely formal trial of efficiency. For
49:44
Speaker 1: it is impossible today, as it was impossible in ancient times,
49:48
Speaker 1: for a man to reach the heights of moral perfection
49:50
Speaker 1: and spiritual consciousness, which were then and are now the
49:54
Speaker 1: goal and aim of all the schools of the mysteries
49:56
Speaker 1: and all the secret orders. Without purification and trial. Complete
50:01
Speaker 1: stainlessness of body, utter purity of mind are absolute essentials
50:06
Speaker 1: to the attainment of things of great and final moment.
50:09
Speaker 1: Who says the Psalmist, and remember that the psalms were
50:12
Speaker 1: the sacred hymns used in the Hebrew mysteries. Who will
50:15
Speaker 1: go up to the hill of the Lord and ascend
50:17
Speaker 1: to his holy place, even he that hath clean hands
50:21
Speaker 1: and a pure heart. Whence it comes that we wear
50:23
Speaker 1: white gloves and aprons as emblems that we have purified
50:26
Speaker 1: our hearts and washed our hands. In innocency. So also
50:31
Speaker 1: our patron, saint Saint John teaches he who hath this
50:34
Speaker 1: hope in him pure feeth himself, even as he I e.
50:38
Speaker 1: The Master whom he is seeking, is pure. For he
50:42
Speaker 1: who is not pure in body and mind, he who
50:44
Speaker 1: is enslaved by passions and desires, or by bondage to
50:48
Speaker 1: the material interests of this world, is by the very
50:51
Speaker 1: fact of his uncleanness, prevented from passing on. Nothing unclean
50:56
Speaker 1: or that deafleth a man, we are told, can enter
50:59
Speaker 1: into the kingdom. And therefore our candidates are told that
51:03
Speaker 1: if they have money or metals about them, if that is,
51:06
Speaker 1: they are subject to any physical attraction or mental defilement,
51:10
Speaker 1: their real initiation into the higher things, of which our
51:13
Speaker 1: ceremony is but a dramatic symbol, must be deferred and
51:16
Speaker 1: repeated again and again until they are cleansed and fitted
51:19
Speaker 1: to pass on. After purification come contemplation and enlightenment, which
51:24
Speaker 1: are the special subjects of the second degree. Aforetime, the
51:28
Speaker 1: candidate for the Mysteries, after protracted discipline and purification, enabling
51:33
Speaker 1: his mind to acquire complete control over his passions, and
51:36
Speaker 1: his lower physical nature, was advanced as he may advance
51:39
Speaker 1: himself to day to the study of his more interior faculties,
51:43
Speaker 1: to understand the science of the human soul, and to
51:46
Speaker 1: trace these faculties in their development from their elementary stage,
51:49
Speaker 1: until he realizes that they connect with and terminate in
51:53
Speaker 1: the Divine itself. The secrets of his mental nature and
51:57
Speaker 1: the principles of intellectual life became at this stage gradually
52:00
Speaker 1: unfolded to his view. You will thus perceive, brethren, that
52:04
Speaker 1: the FC degree, sometimes regarded by us as a somewhat
52:08
Speaker 1: uninteresting one, typifies in reality a long course of personal
52:12
Speaker 1: development requiring the most profound knowledge of the mental and
52:15
Speaker 1: psychical side of our nature. It involves not merely the
52:19
Speaker 1: cleansing and control of the mind, but a full comprehension
52:22
Speaker 1: of our inner constitution, of the more hidden mysteries of
52:25
Speaker 1: our nature, and of spiritual psychology. In this degree, it
52:29
Speaker 1: is that our attention is called to the fact that
52:31
Speaker 1: the mason who has attained proficiency in this grade has
52:34
Speaker 1: been enabled to discover a sacred symbol placed in the
52:37
Speaker 1: center of the building and alluding to the ggot. You, doubtless,
52:40
Speaker 1: we have often asked ourselves what that phrase and what
52:43
Speaker 1: that symbol imply need I repeat that the building alluded
52:47
Speaker 1: to is not the edifice we meet in, but is
52:49
Speaker 1: our own selves, and that the sacred symbol at the
52:52
Speaker 1: center of the roof and of the floor of this
52:54
Speaker 1: outward temple is but symbolic of that which exists at
52:57
Speaker 1: the center of ourselves, and which was spoken of by
52:59
Speaker 1: the Cree Christian Master when he proclaimed that the Kingdom
53:02
Speaker 1: of Heaven is within you, that at the depths of
53:05
Speaker 1: our own being concealed beneath the heavy veils of the
53:08
Speaker 1: sensual lower nature, there resides that vital end immortal principle
53:13
Speaker 1: which is said to allude to the g G because
53:16
Speaker 1: it is nothing other than a spark of God himself
53:18
Speaker 1: imminent within us. Over the old temples of the mysteries,
53:22
Speaker 1: was written the injunction, man, know thyself, and thou shalt
53:26
Speaker 1: know the universe in God. Happy then is the mason
53:30
Speaker 1: who has so far purified and developed his own nature
53:33
Speaker 1: as to realize in its fullness the meaning of the
53:35
Speaker 1: sacred symbol of the second Degree, and found God present
53:39
Speaker 1: not outside but within himself. But in order to find
53:42
Speaker 1: the perfect points of entrance to this secret. And we
53:45
Speaker 1: are told elsewhere that strait is the way, and narrow
53:48
Speaker 1: the gate, and few there be that find it. Emphasis
53:51
Speaker 1: again is laid in our teaching upon the necessity of
53:54
Speaker 1: complete moral rectitude, of utter exactness of thought, word, and action,
53:58
Speaker 1: as exemplified by rigid observance of the symbolic principles of
54:02
Speaker 1: the square level and plumb rule. Here again the symbolism
54:06
Speaker 1: of our work becomes extremely profound and interesting. He who
54:10
Speaker 1: desires to rise to the heights of his own being
54:13
Speaker 1: must first crush and crucify his own lower nature and inclinations.
54:17
Speaker 1: He must perforce tread what elsewhere is described as the
54:20
Speaker 1: way of the cross. And that cross is indicated by
54:23
Speaker 1: the conjunction of those working tools, which, when united, form
54:26
Speaker 1: a cross. And that whey is involved in a scrupulous
54:29
Speaker 1: performance of all that we know those working tools signify.
54:33
Speaker 1: By perfecting his conduct by struggles against his own natural propensities,
54:38
Speaker 1: the candidate is working the rough ashler of his own
54:40
Speaker 1: nature into the perfect cube. And I would ask you
54:43
Speaker 1: to observe also that the cube itself contains a secret,
54:46
Speaker 1: for unfolded it itself denotes and takes the form of
54:49
Speaker 1: the cross, the inward development which the second degree symbolizes
54:54
Speaker 1: is typified by the lowering of the triangular flap of
54:57
Speaker 1: the apron upon the rectangular portion below. This is equivalent
55:01
Speaker 1: to the right of confirmation in the Christian churches. It
55:05
Speaker 1: denotes the progress we have made in a science, or
55:08
Speaker 1: in other words, it indicates that the higher nature of
55:10
Speaker 1: the man, symbolized by the Trinity of Spirit, has descended
55:14
Speaker 1: into and is now permeating his lower nature. Hitherto, in
55:18
Speaker 1: his state of ignorance and moral blindness, the spiritual part
55:22
Speaker 1: of his nature has, as it were, but hovered above him.
55:25
Speaker 1: He has been unconscious of its presence in his constitution.
55:28
Speaker 1: But now having realized its existence, that day spring from
55:32
Speaker 1: on high has visited him, and the nobler part of
55:34
Speaker 1: him descends into his lower nature, illuminating and enriching it.
55:39
Speaker 1: Now the man who so develops himself speedily becomes more
55:42
Speaker 1: conscious of the difficulties of his task, more sensitive to
55:46
Speaker 1: the obstacles the life of the outer world places in
55:48
Speaker 1: the way of the spiritual life. But he is taught
55:51
Speaker 1: to persist with fortitude and with prudence, to develop the
55:55
Speaker 1: highest within him with fervency and zeal upon self. Scrutiny
55:59
Speaker 1: to U I E. Upon entering into that port way
56:03
Speaker 1: of contemplation, which, like a winding staircase, leads inward to
56:06
Speaker 1: the Holy of holies within himself, he realizes that difficulties
56:10
Speaker 1: and obstacles placed in his way are utilized by the
56:13
Speaker 1: eternal wisdom as the necessary means of developing the latent
56:16
Speaker 1: and potential good in him, and that as the rough
56:19
Speaker 1: ashler can only be squared and perfected by chipping and polishing,
56:23
Speaker 1: so he also can be made perfect only by toil
56:25
Speaker 1: and by suffering. He sees that difficulty, adversity, and persecution
56:30
Speaker 1: serve a beneficent purpose. These are his wages, and he
56:35
Speaker 1: learns to accept them without scruple and without diffidence, knowing
56:39
Speaker 1: that he is justly entitled to them, and from the
56:41
Speaker 1: confidence he has in the integrity of that employer who
56:44
Speaker 1: has sent him into this far off world to prepare
56:46
Speaker 1: the materials for building the temple of the heavenly City.
56:49
Speaker 1: And so, as the sign peculiar to the degree suggests,
56:53
Speaker 1: he endeavors to examine and lay bare his heart, to
56:56
Speaker 1: cast away all impurity from it. And he stands like Joshua,
57:00
Speaker 1: praying that the light of day may be extended to
57:02
Speaker 1: him until he has accomplished the overthrow of his own
57:05
Speaker 1: inward enemies and of every obstacle to his complete development.
57:09
Speaker 1: The aspirant who attains proficiency in the work of self
57:12
Speaker 1: perfecting to which the FC grade alludes, has passed away
57:15
Speaker 1: from the side of the lodge, the side of darkness
57:18
Speaker 1: and imperfection, and now stands on the s side in
57:22
Speaker 1: the meridian sunlight of moral illumination, so far as the
57:25
Speaker 1: natural man may possess it, but yet still far removed
57:29
Speaker 1: from that fuller realization of himself and of the mysteries
57:31
Speaker 1: of his own nature, which it is possible for the
57:34
Speaker 1: spiritual adept or master mason to attain. Before that attainment
57:38
Speaker 1: is reached, there remains for him that last and greatest trial,
57:42
Speaker 1: by which alone he can enter into the great consolations
57:45
Speaker 1: and make acquaintance with the supreme realities of existence in
57:49
Speaker 1: the places where the great mysteries have always been taught.
57:52
Speaker 1: What is ceremonially performed in our third degree is no
57:55
Speaker 1: mere symbolical representation, as with us, but an actual, vital
57:59
Speaker 1: explsvariance of a most severe character, one the nature of
58:02
Speaker 1: which can hardly be made intelligible or even credible to
58:06
Speaker 1: those unfamiliar with the subject. I refrain therefore from more
58:11
Speaker 1: than mere mention of it, observing only that it is
58:13
Speaker 1: one not involving physical death. And in this respect only
58:17
Speaker 1: is our ceremony in accord with the experience symbolized. For
58:21
Speaker 1: if you follow closely the raising ceremony, although distinct reference
58:25
Speaker 1: to the death of the body is made, yet such
58:27
Speaker 1: death is obviously intended to be merely symbolical of another
58:31
Speaker 1: kind of death, since the candidate is eventually restored to
58:34
Speaker 1: his former worldly circumstances and material comforts, and his earthly
58:38
Speaker 1: Masonic career is not represented as coming to a close
58:41
Speaker 1: at this stage. All that has happened, in a third
58:44
Speaker 1: degree is that he has symbolically passed through a great
58:47
Speaker 1: and striking change or rebirth or regeneration of his whole nature.
58:52
Speaker 1: He has been so in a corruptible body, and in
58:55
Speaker 1: virtue of the self discipline and self development he has undergone.
58:58
Speaker 1: There has been raised in him him an incorruptible body,
59:01
Speaker 1: and death has been swallowed up in the victory he
59:03
Speaker 1: has attained over himself. I sometimes fear that the two
59:07
Speaker 1: conspicuous display of the emblems and trappings of mortality in
59:11
Speaker 1: our Lodges is apt to create the false impression that
59:13
Speaker 1: the death to which the third degree alludes is the
59:16
Speaker 1: mere physical change that awaits all men. But a far
59:20
Speaker 1: deeper meaning is intended. The mason who knows his science
59:24
Speaker 1: knows that the death of the body is only a
59:26
Speaker 1: natural transition of which he need have no dread whatever.
59:29
Speaker 1: He knows also that when the due time for it arrives,
59:32
Speaker 1: that transition will be a welcome respite from the bondage
59:35
Speaker 1: of this world, from his prisonlike husk of mortality, and
59:38
Speaker 1: from the daily burdens incident to existence in this lower
59:41
Speaker 1: plane of life. All that he fears is that when
59:44
Speaker 1: the time comes, he may not be free from those
59:47
Speaker 1: stains of falsehood and dishonor those imperfections of his own
59:51
Speaker 1: nature that may delay his after progress. No, the death
59:56
Speaker 1: to which masonry alludes using the analogy of bodily death
1:00:00
Speaker 1: and under the veil of a reference to it, is
1:00:02
Speaker 1: that death in life to a man's own lower self,
1:00:04
Speaker 1: which Saint Paul referred to when he protested, I die daily.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: It is over the grave, not of one's dead body,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: but of one's lower self, that the aspirant must walk
1:00:14
Speaker 1: before attaining to the heights. What is meant is that
1:00:18
Speaker 1: complete self sacrifice and self crucifixion, which, as all religions teach,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: are essential before the soul can be raised in glory
1:00:25
Speaker 1: from a figurative death to a reunion with the companions
1:00:28
Speaker 1: of its former toils, both here and in the unseen world.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: The perfect cube must pass through the metamorphosis of the cross.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: The soul must voluntarily and consciously pass through a state
1:00:40
Speaker 1: of utter helplessness from which no earthly hand can rescue it,
1:00:43
Speaker 1: and in trying to raise him, from which the grip
1:00:45
Speaker 1: of any succoring human hand will prove but a slip,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: until at length divine help itself descends from the throne above,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: and with the lion's grip of almighty power, raises the
1:00:55
Speaker 1: faithful and regenerated soul to union with itself in an
1:00:58
Speaker 1: embrace of reconcillyath. And that one meant. In all the
1:01:02
Speaker 1: schools of the mysteries, as well as in all the
1:01:05
Speaker 1: great religions of the world, the attainment of the spiritual
1:01:08
Speaker 1: goal just described is enacted or taught under the veil
1:01:11
Speaker 1: of a tragic episode analogous to that of our third degree,
1:01:15
Speaker 1: And in each there is a Master, whose death the
1:01:17
Speaker 1: aspirind is instructed he must imitate in his own person
1:01:21
Speaker 1: in masonry. That prototype is Hiram Abyff. But it must
1:01:25
Speaker 1: be made clear that there is no historical basis whatever
1:01:27
Speaker 1: for the legendary account of Hiram's death. The entire story
1:01:32
Speaker 1: is symbolical and was purposely invented for the symbolical purposes
1:01:35
Speaker 1: of our teaching. If you examine it closely, you will
1:01:39
Speaker 1: perceive how obvious the correspondence is between this story and
1:01:42
Speaker 1: the story of the death of the Christian Master related
1:01:45
Speaker 1: in the Gospels. And it is needless to say that
1:01:47
Speaker 1: the mason who realizes the meaning of the latter will
1:01:50
Speaker 1: comprehend the former and a veiled illusion that is implied.
1:01:54
Speaker 1: In the one case, the Master is crucified between the
1:01:56
Speaker 1: two thieves. In the other he is done to death
1:01:59
Speaker 1: between two villas. In the one case appear the penitent
1:02:03
Speaker 1: and the impenitent thief. In the other we have the
1:02:05
Speaker 1: conspirators who make a voluntary confession of their guilt and
1:02:09
Speaker 1: were pardoned, and the others who were found guilty and
1:02:11
Speaker 1: put to death. Whilst the moral and spiritual lessons deducible
1:02:15
Speaker 1: from the stories correspond as every Christian is taught that
1:02:19
Speaker 1: in his own life he must imitate the life and
1:02:21
Speaker 1: death of Christ. So every Mason is made to represent
1:02:24
Speaker 1: one of the brightest characters recorded in our annals. But
1:02:27
Speaker 1: as the annals of Masonry are contained in the volume
1:02:30
Speaker 1: of the Sacred Law and not elsewhere, it is easy
1:02:33
Speaker 1: to see who the character is who is alluded to
1:02:36
Speaker 1: as that great authority and initiate of the mysteries. Saint
1:02:40
Speaker 1: Paul taught, we can only attain to the Master's resurrection
1:02:43
Speaker 1: by being made conformable unto his death, and we must
1:02:47
Speaker 1: die with him if we are to be raised like him.
1:02:49
Speaker 1: And it is in virtue of that conformity, in virtue
1:02:52
Speaker 1: of being individually made to imitate the Grand Master and
1:02:55
Speaker 1: his death, that we are made worthy of certain points
1:02:58
Speaker 1: of fellowship with him. For the five points of fellowship
1:03:02
Speaker 1: of the third degree are the five wounds of Christ.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: The three years ministry of the Christian Master ended with
1:03:08
Speaker 1: his death, and these refer to the three degrees of
1:03:11
Speaker 1: the craft, which also end in the mystical death of
1:03:14
Speaker 1: the Masonic candidate and his subsequent raising or resurrection. The
1:03:19
Speaker 1: name Hiram Abiff signifies in Hebrew the teacher Guru or
1:03:23
Speaker 1: enlightened one from the Father, a fact which may help
1:03:26
Speaker 1: you still further to recognize the concealed purpose of the
1:03:29
Speaker 1: teaching under the name of Hiram. Then, and beneath a
1:03:33
Speaker 1: veil of allegory, we see an allusion to another master.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: And it is this master, this elder brother, who is
1:03:39
Speaker 1: alluded to in our lectures, whose character we preserve, whether
1:03:42
Speaker 1: absent or present, i e. Whether he is present to
1:03:46
Speaker 1: our minds or no. And in regard to whom we
1:03:49
Speaker 1: adopt the excellent principle silence, lest at any time there
1:03:52
Speaker 1: should be among us trained in some other than the
1:03:54
Speaker 1: Christian faith, and to whom on that account the mention
1:03:57
Speaker 1: of the Christian master's name might possibly prove an offense
1:04:01
Speaker 1: or provoke contention. To typify the advance by the candidate
1:04:05
Speaker 1: at this stage of his development, the apron here assumes
1:04:08
Speaker 1: greater elaborateness. It is garnished with a light blue border
1:04:12
Speaker 1: and rosettes, indicating that a higher than the natural light
1:04:15
Speaker 1: now permeates his being, radiates from his person, and that
1:04:18
Speaker 1: the wilderness of the natural man is now blossoming as
1:04:21
Speaker 1: the rose in the flowers and graces incident to his
1:04:24
Speaker 1: regenerated nature, whilst upon either side of the apron are
1:04:28
Speaker 1: seen two columns of light descending from above, streaming into
1:04:31
Speaker 1: the depths of his whole being, and terminating in the
1:04:34
Speaker 1: sevenfold tassels, which typify the sevenfold prismatic spectrum of the
1:04:39
Speaker 1: supernal light. He is now lord of himself, the true
1:04:43
Speaker 1: Master Mason, able to govern that lodge which is within himself.
1:04:47
Speaker 1: And as he has passed through the three degrees of
1:04:49
Speaker 1: purifying and self perfecting and squared leveled and harmonized his
1:04:53
Speaker 1: triple nature of body, soul and spirit, he also wears
1:04:57
Speaker 1: on attaining mastership, the triple teesp which comprises the form
1:05:01
Speaker 1: of a level, but is also the Hebrew form of
1:05:04
Speaker 1: the cross, the three crosses upon the apron, thus corresponding
1:05:08
Speaker 1: with the three crosses of Calvary. To sum up the
1:05:11
Speaker 1: import of the teaching of the three degrees. It is
1:05:14
Speaker 1: clear therefore that from grade to grade, the candidate is
1:05:17
Speaker 1: being led from an old to an entirely new quality
1:05:20
Speaker 1: of life. He begins his Masonic career as the natural man,
1:05:24
Speaker 1: he ends it by becoming, through its discipline, a regenerated,
1:05:28
Speaker 1: perfected man. To attain this transmutation, this metamorphosis of himself.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: He is taught first to purify and subdue his sensual nature,
1:05:37
Speaker 1: then to purify and develop his mental nature, and finally,
1:05:40
Speaker 1: by utter surrender of his old life and losing his
1:05:43
Speaker 1: soul to save it, he rises from the dead of Master,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: a just man made perfect with larger consciousness and faculties,
1:05:50
Speaker 1: an efficient instrument for use by the Great Architect in
1:05:53
Speaker 1: his plan of rebuilding the temple of fallen humanity, and
1:05:56
Speaker 1: capable of initiating and advancing men to a participation in
1:06:01
Speaker 1: the same great work. This, the evolution of man into superman,
1:06:06
Speaker 1: was always the purpose of the ancient mysteries, and the
1:06:09
Speaker 1: real purpose of modern masonry is not the social and
1:06:12
Speaker 1: charitable purposes to which so much attention is paid, but
1:06:16
Speaker 1: the expediting of the spiritual evolution of those who aspire
1:06:19
Speaker 1: to perfect their own nature and transform it into a
1:06:21
Speaker 1: more godlike quality. And this is a definite science, a
1:06:25
Speaker 1: royal art, which it is possible for each of us
1:06:28
Speaker 1: to put into practice. Whilst to join the craft for
1:06:31
Speaker 1: any other purpose than to study and pursue this science
1:06:34
Speaker 1: is to misunderstand its meaning. Hence it is that no
1:06:37
Speaker 1: one should apply to enter masonry unless from the deepest
1:06:40
Speaker 1: promptings of his own heart, as it hungers for light
1:06:43
Speaker 1: upon the problem of its own nature. We are all
1:06:46
Speaker 1: imperfect beings, conscious of something lacking to us that would
1:06:49
Speaker 1: make us what in our best moments we feign would be.
1:06:54
Speaker 1: What is that which is lacking to us? What is
1:06:57
Speaker 1: that which is lost? And the answer is the genuine
1:07:00
Speaker 1: secrets of a master Mason, the true knowledge of ourselves,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: the conscious realization of our divine potentialities. The very essence
1:07:09
Speaker 1: of the Masonic doctrine is that all men in this
1:07:11
Speaker 1: world are in search of something in their own nature
1:07:14
Speaker 1: which they have lost, but that with proper instruction and
1:07:17
Speaker 1: by their own patience and industry, they may hope to
1:07:19
Speaker 1: find its. Philosophy implies that this temporal world is the
1:07:23
Speaker 1: antipodes of another and more real world from which we
1:07:26
Speaker 1: originally came, and to which we may accelerate our return
1:07:29
Speaker 1: by such a course of self knowledge and self discipline
1:07:32
Speaker 1: as our teaching inculcates. It implies that this present world
1:07:36
Speaker 1: is the place where the symbolic stones and timber are
1:07:39
Speaker 1: being prepared, so far off from that mystical Jerusalem, where
1:07:42
Speaker 1: one day they will be found put together and collectively
1:07:45
Speaker 1: to constitute that temple, which even now is being built
1:07:48
Speaker 1: without hands and without the noise or help of metal tools,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: and this world therefore being but a transient, temporary one
1:07:56
Speaker 1: for us, it is necessarily one of shadows, images, and
1:08:00
Speaker 1: merely substituted secrets, until such time as being raised, not
1:08:04
Speaker 1: merely symbolically, but actually in character and knowledge, in consciousness.
1:08:09
Speaker 1: To the sublime degree of master Mason, we fit ourselves
1:08:12
Speaker 1: to learn something of the genuine secrets, something of the
1:08:15
Speaker 1: living realities that lurk and live in concealment behind the
1:08:19
Speaker 1: outward show of things. All human life, having originated in
1:08:23
Speaker 1: the mystical Geast and journeyed into this world, which with
1:08:26
Speaker 1: us is the West, must return again to its source.
1:08:31
Speaker 1: To quote again the verse of the Brother I have
1:08:33
Speaker 1: already cited from east to west. The soul, her journey
1:08:37
Speaker 1: takes at many bitter founds, her fever slakes, halts at
1:08:40
Speaker 1: strange taverns, by the way to feast, resumes her load,
1:08:44
Speaker 1: and painful progress makes back to the east. Masonry, by
1:08:48
Speaker 1: means of a series of dramatic representations, is intended to
1:08:52
Speaker 1: furnish those who care to discover its purport and to
1:08:54
Speaker 1: take advantage of the hints it throws out in allegorical form,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: with an example and with instructions by which our return
1:09:01
Speaker 1: to the geast may be accelerated. It refers to no
1:09:04
Speaker 1: architecture of a mundane kind, but to the architecture of
1:09:07
Speaker 1: the soul's life. It is not in itself a religion,
1:09:11
Speaker 1: but rather a dramatized and intensified form of religious processes
1:09:15
Speaker 1: inculcated by every religious system in the world. For there
1:09:19
Speaker 1: is no religion but teaches the lesson of the necessity
1:09:22
Speaker 1: of bodily purification of our first degree. None but emphasizes
1:09:26
Speaker 1: that of the second degree, that mental, moral, and spiritual
1:09:29
Speaker 1: developments are essential and will lead to the discovery of
1:09:32
Speaker 1: a certain secret center where truth abides in fullness. And
1:09:35
Speaker 1: that that center is a point within a circle of
1:09:38
Speaker 1: our own nature, from which no man or mason can
1:09:40
Speaker 1: ever err, for it is the divine kingdom latent within us,
1:09:44
Speaker 1: all into which we have as yet failed to enter.
1:09:48
Speaker 1: And there is none but insists upon the supreme lesson
1:09:51
Speaker 1: of self sacrifice and mystical death to the things of
1:09:54
Speaker 1: this world, so graphically portrayed in our third degree. None
1:09:58
Speaker 1: but indicates that in that hour of greater as this darkness,
1:10:00
Speaker 1: the light of the primal divine spark within us is
1:10:03
Speaker 1: never wholly extinguished, and that by loyalty to that light,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: by patience, and by perseverance, time and circumstances will restore
1:10:11
Speaker 1: to us that genuine secrets the ultimate truths and realities
1:10:15
Speaker 1: of our own nature. We are here Masonry teaches as
1:10:19
Speaker 1: it were, in captivity, by the waters of Babylon, and
1:10:22
Speaker 1: in a strange land, and our doctrine truly tells us
1:10:25
Speaker 1: that the richest harmonies of this life are as nothing
1:10:27
Speaker 1: in comparison with the songs of Zion, and that even
1:10:30
Speaker 1: when we are installed into the highest eminences, this world
1:10:33
Speaker 1: or the craft may offer, it were better that our
1:10:36
Speaker 1: right hand should forget its cunning, and that we should
1:10:38
Speaker 1: fling the illusory treasures of this transitory world behind our backs,
1:10:42
Speaker 1: than in all our doings fail to remember the Jerusalem
1:10:46
Speaker 1: that lies beyond. Our teaching is purposely veiled in allegory
1:10:51
Speaker 1: and symbol, and its deeper import does not appear upon
1:10:53
Speaker 1: the surface of the ritual itself. This is partly in
1:10:57
Speaker 1: correspondence with human life itself and the world we live in,
1:11:00
Speaker 1: which are themselves but allegories and symbols of another life
1:11:04
Speaker 1: and the veils of another world, and partly intentional also
1:11:07
Speaker 1: so that only those who have reverent and understanding minds
1:11:10
Speaker 1: may penetrate into the more hidden meaning of the doctrine
1:11:13
Speaker 1: of the craft. The deeper secrets in masonry, like the
1:11:17
Speaker 1: deeper secrets of life, are heavily veiled, are closely hidden.
1:11:21
Speaker 1: They exist concealed beneath a great reservation. But whoso knows
1:11:25
Speaker 1: anything of them knows also that they are many and valuable,
1:11:28
Speaker 1: and that they are disclosed only to those who act
1:11:31
Speaker 1: upon the hint given in our lectures. Seek, Can ye
1:11:33
Speaker 1: shall find? Ask? Can ye shall have? Kna? Can it
1:11:36
Speaker 1: shall be opened? Unto you? The search may be long
1:11:39
Speaker 1: and difficult, but great things are not acquired without effort
1:11:43
Speaker 1: and search. But it may be affirmed that to the
1:11:45
Speaker 1: candidate who is properly prepared, in a much fuller sense
1:11:49
Speaker 1: than we conventionally attached to that expression, there are doors
1:11:52
Speaker 1: leading from the craft, that, when knocked, will assuredly open
1:11:55
Speaker 1: and admit him to places and to knowledge he at
1:11:57
Speaker 1: present rex little of. For him too, who would enter
1:12:01
Speaker 1: upon the greater initiations. The same rule applies as that
1:12:05
Speaker 1: which was symbolically represented upon his first entrance into the order.
1:12:09
Speaker 1: But this time it will no longer be a symbol,
1:12:11
Speaker 1: but a realistic fact. He will find I mean that
1:12:15
Speaker 1: a drawn sword is always threatening in front of him,
1:12:18
Speaker 1: and that a cable toe is still around his neck.
1:12:22
Speaker 1: Danger indeed awaits the candidate who would rush precipitately and
1:12:26
Speaker 1: in a state of moral unfitness, into the deeper mysteries
1:12:29
Speaker 1: of his being, which are indeed serious, solemn, and awful.
1:12:33
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, for him who has once
1:12:35
Speaker 1: entered upon the path of light, it is moral suicide
1:12:38
Speaker 1: to turn back. And now, brethren, to bring to an
1:12:42
Speaker 1: end this brief and imperfect survey of the deeper meaning
1:12:45
Speaker 1: purposes of our craft. I pray that what is now
1:12:48
Speaker 1: spoken may help to prove to some of you a
1:12:50
Speaker 1: further restoration to that light, which is at all times
1:12:53
Speaker 1: the predominant wish of our hearts. It rests with ourselves
1:12:57
Speaker 1: whether masonry remains for us what upon its owns outward
1:13:00
Speaker 1: and superficial side, appears to be merely a series of
1:13:03
Speaker 1: symbolic rites, or whether we allow those symbols to pass
1:13:06
Speaker 1: into our lives and become realities therein whatever formalities we
1:13:11
Speaker 1: may have gone through in connection with our admission into
1:13:13
Speaker 1: the Order, we cannot be said to have been regularly
1:13:16
Speaker 1: initiated into Masonry, so long as we regard the craft
1:13:19
Speaker 1: as merely an incident of social life, and treated ceremonies
1:13:22
Speaker 1: as but rites of an archaic and perfunctory nature. The Craft,
1:13:27
Speaker 1: as I have already suggested, was given out to the
1:13:30
Speaker 1: world from more secret sources, still as a great experiment
1:13:33
Speaker 1: and means of grace, and as a great opportunity for
1:13:36
Speaker 1: those who cared to avail themselves of what is little
1:13:39
Speaker 1: known and little taught outside certain sanctuaries of concealment. It
1:13:43
Speaker 1: was intended to furnish forth in epitome or synopsis, in
1:13:46
Speaker 1: dramatic form of the spiritual regeneration of man, and to
1:13:50
Speaker 1: throw out hints and suggestions that might lead those capable
1:13:54
Speaker 1: of discerning its deeper purpose and symbolism into still deeper
1:13:58
Speaker 1: initiations than the merely supersu official ones enacted in our lodges.
1:14:03
Speaker 1: For as on the external side of the Order, we
1:14:05
Speaker 1: may be called to occupy positions of honor and office
1:14:08
Speaker 1: in the provincial Grand Lodge, or may enter other Masonic
1:14:11
Speaker 1: grades outside the Craft, so also upon its internal side
1:14:15
Speaker 1: there are eminences to which we may be called, that,
1:14:17
Speaker 1: whilst offering us no social distinction and no visible advancement,
1:14:21
Speaker 1: are yet really the true prizes the most valuable attainments
1:14:25
Speaker 1: of Masonic desire to this goal, all may attain who
1:14:29
Speaker 1: truly seek to do so, and who prepare the way
1:14:31
Speaker 1: for themselves by appropriating the truths lying beneath the superficial
1:14:35
Speaker 1: allegory and the symbolic veils of the craft teaching. And
1:14:39
Speaker 1: since there seems today a genuine and widespread desire on
1:14:42
Speaker 1: the part of many members of the Order to enter
1:14:44
Speaker 1: into a fuller understanding of what the Order itself conceals
1:14:48
Speaker 1: rather than reveals, I feel I should not be discharging
1:14:51
Speaker 1: my duties as a master in the Craft. Did I
1:14:53
Speaker 1: not take advantage of that position to share with them
1:14:55
Speaker 1: some measure at least of what I have been able
1:14:57
Speaker 1: to glean for myself. But finally, I must ask you
1:15:01
Speaker 1: to remember that, in accordance with the general design of
1:15:04
Speaker 1: our system, every master of a lodge is but a
1:15:07
Speaker 1: symbol and a substitution, and that behind him and behind
1:15:10
Speaker 1: all other the grand officers of the Masonic hierarchy, there
1:15:14
Speaker 1: stands the Great White Head, the Great Initiator and Grand
1:15:17
Speaker 1: Master of all true Masons throughout the universe, whether members
1:15:21
Speaker 1: of our craft or not, to whom let us all
1:15:24
Speaker 1: bow in gratitude for the invaluable gift accorded to us
1:15:27
Speaker 1: in this our order, and to whose protection and to
1:15:30
Speaker 1: whose enlightening guidance into its deeper mysteries, I commend you all.
1:15:35
Speaker 1: Chapter two. Masonry as a philosophy signs are not wanting
1:15:40
Speaker 1: that a higher Masonic consciousness is awakening in the craft.
1:15:44
Speaker 1: Members of the order are gradually and here and there
1:15:47
Speaker 1: becoming alive to the fact that much more than meets
1:15:50
Speaker 1: the eye and ear lies beneath the surface of Masonic
1:15:53
Speaker 1: doctrine in symbols. They are beginning to think for themselves
1:15:57
Speaker 1: instead of taking the face value of things for granted.
1:15:59
Speaker 1: And as their thought develops, facts that previously remained unperceived
1:16:04
Speaker 1: assume prominence and significance. They discern the Masonic system to
1:16:08
Speaker 1: be something deeper than a code of elementary morality, such
1:16:11
Speaker 1: as all men are expected to observe, whether formally Masons
1:16:15
Speaker 1: or not. They reflect that the phenomenal growth of the
1:16:18
Speaker 1: craft is scarcely accountable for upon the supposition that modern
1:16:22
Speaker 1: speculative masonry perpetuates nothing more than the private associations that
1:16:26
Speaker 1: once existed in connection with the operative builder's trade. They
1:16:30
Speaker 1: recognize that there can be no peculiar virtue or interest
1:16:33
Speaker 1: in continuing to imitate the customs of ancient trade guilds
1:16:36
Speaker 1: for the mere sake of so doing, or of keeping
1:16:39
Speaker 1: on foot a costly organization for teaching men the elementary
1:16:42
Speaker 1: symbolism of a few building tools, supplemented by a considerable
1:16:46
Speaker 1: amount of social conviviality. Upon a little thought, it becomes
1:16:50
Speaker 1: pretty obvious that our third degree, and the great central
1:16:53
Speaker 1: legend that forms the climax of the craft system, cannot have,
1:16:57
Speaker 1: and can never have, had, any direct or practical bearing upon,
1:17:00
Speaker 1: or connection with the trade of the operative mason. It
1:17:04
Speaker 1: may be urged that we have our great charity system,
1:17:07
Speaker 1: and that the social side of our proceedings is a
1:17:09
Speaker 1: valuable and humanizing asset. Granted, but other people in other
1:17:14
Speaker 1: societies are philanthropic and social as well as we, and
1:17:17
Speaker 1: a secret society is not necessary to promote such ends
1:17:21
Speaker 1: which are merely supplemental to the original purpose of the order.
1:17:25
Speaker 1: The discernment of such facts as these then suggests to
1:17:29
Speaker 1: us that the Craft has not yet entered into the
1:17:31
Speaker 1: full heritage of understanding its own system, and that side
1:17:34
Speaker 1: matters connected with Masonry, which we have long emphasized so
1:17:37
Speaker 1: strongly valuable in their own way as they are, are not,
1:17:41
Speaker 1: after all, the primary and proper work of the Order.
1:17:44
Speaker 1: The work of the Order is to initiate into certain
1:17:47
Speaker 1: secrets and mysteries. And obviously, if the Order fails to
1:17:50
Speaker 1: expound its own secrets and mysteries, and so to confer
1:17:54
Speaker 1: real initiations, as distinguished from passing candidates through certain formal ceremonies,
1:17:59
Speaker 1: it is not fulfill filling its original purpose, whatever other
1:18:01
Speaker 1: incidental good it may be doing. Now, as these facts
1:18:05
Speaker 1: are the basis upon which this lecture proceeds, let me,
1:18:08
Speaker 1: at the outset make my first point by stating that,
1:18:11
Speaker 1: as the progress in the Craft of every brother admitted
1:18:14
Speaker 1: into its ranks is by gradual successive stages, in like manner,
1:18:18
Speaker 1: the understanding of the Masonic system and doctrine is also
1:18:21
Speaker 1: a matter of gradual development. Stated in the simplest terms possible,
1:18:26
Speaker 1: the theory of Masonic progress is that every member admitted
1:18:29
Speaker 1: to the Order enters in a state of darkness and
1:18:31
Speaker 1: ignorance as to what masonry teaches, and that later on
1:18:34
Speaker 1: he is supposed to be brought to light and knowledge.
1:18:37
Speaker 1: Putting it in other terms, he enters the craft symbolically
1:18:40
Speaker 1: as a rough ashler, and it is his business so
1:18:43
Speaker 1: to develop both his character and his understanding, that ultimately,
1:18:46
Speaker 1: in virtue of what he has learned and practiced, he
1:18:49
Speaker 1: may be as a finished and perfect cube. Now, the
1:18:52
Speaker 1: understanding of the Masonic scheme tends to develop upon precisely
1:18:56
Speaker 1: similar lines. Its meaning is not discernible all at once,
1:19:01
Speaker 1: and unless our minds are properly prepared and our understandings
1:19:04
Speaker 1: carefully trained, they are unlikely ever to participate in the
1:19:07
Speaker 1: real secrets and mysteries of masonry at all. However often
1:19:11
Speaker 1: we may watch the performance of external ceremonial or however
1:19:14
Speaker 1: proficient we may be in memorizing the rituals and instruction lectures.
1:19:19
Speaker 1: The first stage, the first conception of what masonry involves,
1:19:23
Speaker 1: is concerned merely with the surface value of the doctrine,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: with an acquaintance with the literal side of the imparted
1:19:29
Speaker 1: knowledge which we all obtain upon entering the craft. Beyond
1:19:33
Speaker 1: this stage, the vast majority of Masons, it is to
1:19:36
Speaker 1: be feared never passes. This is the stage of knowledge,
1:19:40
Speaker 1: in which the craft is regarded as a social, semi public,
1:19:43
Speaker 1: semi secret community to which it is agreeable and advantageous
1:19:47
Speaker 1: to belong for sociable or even for ulterior purposes. In
1:19:50
Speaker 1: which the goal of the mason's ambition is to attain
1:19:53
Speaker 1: office in high preferment, and to wear a breast full
1:19:55
Speaker 1: of decorations, in which he takes a literal, superficial, and
1:19:59
Speaker 1: historic view of the subject matter of the doctrine, in
1:20:02
Speaker 1: which ability to perform the ceremonial work with dignity and effectiveness,
1:20:07
Speaker 1: and to know the instruction catechisms by heart, so that
1:20:10
Speaker 1: not a syllable is wrongly rendered is deemed the height
1:20:13
Speaker 1: of Masonic proficiency. And where after discharging these functions with
1:20:17
Speaker 1: a certain degree of credit, his idea is often to
1:20:20
Speaker 1: have the lodge closed as speedily as may be, and
1:20:23
Speaker 1: get away to the relaxation of the festive board. Now
1:20:27
Speaker 1: all these things belong to what may be called the
1:20:29
Speaker 1: very rough aschelor stage of the Masonic conception. I am not,
1:20:33
Speaker 1: of course, alluding to any individual Mason. I confess frankly
1:20:38
Speaker 1: to having come within this category. Myself and I think
1:20:41
Speaker 1: we may agree that we have all passed through the
1:20:43
Speaker 1: phase I have described for the simple reason that we
1:20:46
Speaker 1: knew nothing better and had no one able to teach
1:20:48
Speaker 1: us something better. Let us not complain. If we look
1:20:53
Speaker 1: back upon the progress of the craft during the last
1:20:55
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years, we cannot but congratulate ourselves
1:20:58
Speaker 1: upon the enormous, if gradual strides made in Masonic progress
1:21:02
Speaker 1: and decorum, even in the rough, ashlar stage of our
1:21:05
Speaker 1: conception of it. Anyone familiar with the records of old
1:21:08
Speaker 1: lodges will have been brought into close touch with times
1:21:11
Speaker 1: when almost every element of reverence and dignity seems to
1:21:14
Speaker 1: have been lacking. Lodges were held in the public rooms
1:21:17
Speaker 1: of taverns. Whatever official furniture decorated these primitive temples, court pots,
1:21:23
Speaker 1: and churchwardens figured largely among the unauthorized equipment. In one
1:21:28
Speaker 1: of the great London galleries, there hangs a famous picture
1:21:31
Speaker 1: called Knight, by the great artist and moralist of his age, Hogarth.
1:21:36
Speaker 1: His purpose was to depict the characteristic night scene in
1:21:39
Speaker 1: the streets of London as they appeared in his time.
1:21:43
Speaker 1: Among the typical specimens of depravity haunting those ill lit streets.
1:21:47
Speaker 1: The great Artist has held up to the derision of
1:21:49
Speaker 1: all time, the figure of a Freemason staggering home, drunk,
1:21:52
Speaker 1: still wearing his apron and being assisted by the tiler
1:21:55
Speaker 1: of the lodge. No true Mason can regard this picture
1:21:59
Speaker 1: without a burning sense of shame, and without registering a
1:22:02
Speaker 1: resolution to redeem the craft from this stigma. We have,
1:22:06
Speaker 1: I hope, got past such things as these. We have
1:22:10
Speaker 1: awakened to some sense of dignity and self reverence. The
1:22:13
Speaker 1: Craft is well governed by its higher authorities, and individual
1:22:17
Speaker 1: lodges take a pride in providing proper temples and in
1:22:20
Speaker 1: conducting their assemblies with due regard to the solemnity of
1:22:23
Speaker 1: Masonic doctrine. May the Order never relapse into the primitive
1:22:27
Speaker 1: and chaotic condition from which it has emerged. But this
1:22:31
Speaker 1: improvement in matters of external deportment, great and welcome as
1:22:35
Speaker 1: it is, is not enough to prevent the Order settling
1:22:39
Speaker 1: down into a state of self satisfaction with its social
1:22:42
Speaker 1: privileges and the agreeableness of friendly intercourse among its members,
1:22:46
Speaker 1: to prevent its making its claims to being a system
1:22:48
Speaker 1: of knowledge and science as perfunctory and little onerous as possible.
1:22:52
Speaker 1: The improvement I have spoken of must be attended, and
1:22:55
Speaker 1: I believe is destined to be attended by an awakening
1:22:58
Speaker 1: to the deep significance of the craft's internal purposes. And
1:23:02
Speaker 1: since I have referred to what I have termed the
1:23:04
Speaker 1: rough Ashler conception of that purpose, you have the right
1:23:07
Speaker 1: to ask me now to state that loftier conception, which
1:23:10
Speaker 1: may be regarded in comparison as the perfect cube. The
1:23:15
Speaker 1: answer to this inquiry I shall not attempt to state.
1:23:17
Speaker 1: In so many words. I invite you to regard this
1:23:21
Speaker 1: whole lecture as an indication of what that answer must be.
1:23:25
Speaker 1: To some extent, I endeavored to formulate that answer upon
1:23:28
Speaker 1: a previous occasion, But whilst I then entered rather into
1:23:31
Speaker 1: the details and minuchi of the craft system and symbols,
1:23:35
Speaker 1: I shall treat the subject now upon broader lines and
1:23:37
Speaker 1: deal with masonry in its wider and more philosophic aspect.
1:23:42
Speaker 1: I said upon that occasion, and I must repeat it
1:23:45
Speaker 1: now that in its broad and more vital doctrine, masonry
1:23:48
Speaker 1: was essentially a philosophic and religious system expressed in dramatic
1:23:52
Speaker 1: ceremonial It is a system intended to supply answers to
1:23:56
Speaker 1: the three great questions that press so inexorably upon the
1:23:59
Speaker 1: attention of every every thoughtful man, and that are the
1:24:01
Speaker 1: subject around which all religions and all philosophies move. What
1:24:05
Speaker 1: am I? Whence come I? Whither go I? It is
1:24:10
Speaker 1: a truism to say that, in our quieter and more
1:24:12
Speaker 1: serious moments, we all feel the need of some reliable
1:24:15
Speaker 1: answer to these questions. Light upon them is the predominant
1:24:19
Speaker 1: wish of our hearts. And upon such light as we
1:24:22
Speaker 1: can obtain, whether from Masonry or elsewhere, depends our philosophy
1:24:26
Speaker 1: of life and the rule of conduct by which we
1:24:28
Speaker 1: regulate our life. In a larger sense then than our conventional,
1:24:33
Speaker 1: limited one. The Masonic candidate is presumed to enter the
1:24:36
Speaker 1: order in search of light upon these problems, light that
1:24:39
Speaker 1: he is presumed not to have succeeded in finding elsewhere.
1:24:43
Speaker 1: If his candidature is actuated by any motive other than
1:24:46
Speaker 1: a genuine desire for knowledge upon these problems, which, beyond
1:24:50
Speaker 1: all others, are vital to his peace, and by a
1:24:52
Speaker 1: sincere wish to render himself, by the help of that knowledge,
1:24:56
Speaker 1: serviceable to his fellow creatures, then his candidature is life
1:25:00
Speaker 1: less than a worthy one. The reason why no man
1:25:03
Speaker 1: should be solicited to join the order is that, in
1:25:05
Speaker 1: regard to these matters of sacred and momentous import the
1:25:09
Speaker 1: first springs of impulse must originate within the postulant himself.
1:25:12
Speaker 1: The first place of his preparation must ever be in
1:25:15
Speaker 1: his own heart, and it is to the cry in
1:25:17
Speaker 1: knocking of his inward need, and for no less a
1:25:20
Speaker 1: motive that, in theory, though scarcely in practice, the door
1:25:24
Speaker 1: to the mysteries is opened, and the seeker enters in
1:25:27
Speaker 1: and finds help. At another stage of his symbolical progress,
1:25:31
Speaker 1: the candidate learns from his superior brethren that they, along
1:25:34
Speaker 1: with himself, are in search of something that is lost
1:25:37
Speaker 1: in which they have hopes of finding. And it is
1:25:40
Speaker 1: here that the great motive of this and of all quests,
1:25:43
Speaker 1: as well as the clue to the real purpose of masonry,
1:25:46
Speaker 1: appears prominently and is stated in emphatic terms. Masonry is
1:25:50
Speaker 1: the quest after something that has been lost. Now, what
1:25:54
Speaker 1: is it that has been lost? Consider the matter? Thus,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: why should we or the world at large requires systems
1:26:02
Speaker 1: of religion and philosophy at all? What is the motive
1:26:05
Speaker 1: and reason for the existence of a Masonic order, and
1:26:08
Speaker 1: of many other orders of initiation, both of the past
1:26:11
Speaker 1: and the present. Why should they exist at all? I
1:26:15
Speaker 1: might reduce the matter to the compass of a small
1:26:17
Speaker 1: and personal point by asking, why have you come to
1:26:20
Speaker 1: hear this lecture? And why should I have been striving
1:26:22
Speaker 1: for many years to acquire the information that enables me
1:26:25
Speaker 1: to give it? If it be not the fact? As
1:26:28
Speaker 1: indeed it is, that every man, in his reflective moments,
1:26:31
Speaker 1: realizes the sense of some element of his own being
1:26:33
Speaker 1: having become lost, that he is conscious, if he be
1:26:36
Speaker 1: honest with himself, of the sense of moral imperfection, of ignorance,
1:26:41
Speaker 1: of restricted knowledge about himself and his surroundings, that he
1:26:45
Speaker 1: is aware, in short of some radical deficiency in his constitution, which,
1:26:50
Speaker 1: were it but found and made good, would satisfy this
1:26:53
Speaker 1: craving for information, for completeness and perfection, would lead him
1:26:57
Speaker 1: from darkness to light, and would put him beyond ignorance
1:27:00
Speaker 1: and beyond the touch of the many ills that flesh
1:27:03
Speaker 1: is heir to. The point is too obvious to need
1:27:06
Speaker 1: pressing further, and the answer to it is to be
1:27:09
Speaker 1: found by a reference to a great doctrine that forms
1:27:11
Speaker 1: the philosophic basis of all systems of religion and all
1:27:15
Speaker 1: the great systems of the mysteries and of initiation of antiquity, viz.
1:27:19
Speaker 1: That which is popularly known as the fall of man.
1:27:22
Speaker 1: However we may choose to regard this event, and throughout
1:27:26
Speaker 1: the history of the human race, it has been taught
1:27:28
Speaker 1: in innumerable ways and in all manner of parables, allegories, myths,
1:27:32
Speaker 1: and legends. Its sole and single meaning is that humanity
1:27:36
Speaker 1: as a whole has fallen away from its original parent
1:27:38
Speaker 1: source in place, that from being embedded in the eternal
1:27:41
Speaker 1: center of life, man has become projected to the circumference,
1:27:45
Speaker 1: and that in this present world of ours he is
1:27:47
Speaker 1: undergoing a period of restriction of ignorance, of discipline and
1:27:51
Speaker 1: experience that shall ultimately fit him to return to the
1:27:55
Speaker 1: center whence he came, and to which he properly belongs.
1:27:58
Speaker 1: Paradise Lost is the real theme of Masonry, no less
1:28:01
Speaker 1: than of Milton, as it is also of all the
1:28:04
Speaker 1: ancient systems of the mysteries. The Masonic doctrine focuses and
1:28:08
Speaker 1: emphasizes the fact and the sense of this loss beneath
1:28:12
Speaker 1: a veil of allegory describing the intention to build a
1:28:15
Speaker 1: certain temple that could not be finished because of an
1:28:18
Speaker 1: untimely disaster. Masonry implies that humanity is the real temple
1:28:22
Speaker 1: whose building became obstructed, and that we, who are both
1:28:25
Speaker 1: the craftsmen and the building materials of what was intended
1:28:28
Speaker 1: to be an unparalleled structure, are owing to a certain
1:28:31
Speaker 1: unhappy event, living here in this world in conditions where
1:28:35
Speaker 1: the genuine and full secrets of our nature are for
1:28:38
Speaker 1: the time being lost to us, where the full powers
1:28:42
Speaker 1: of the soul of man are curtailed by the limitations
1:28:45
Speaker 1: of physical life, and where during our apprenticeship of probation
1:28:48
Speaker 1: and discipline, we have to put up with the substituted
1:28:51
Speaker 1: knowledge derivable through our limited and very fallible senses. But
1:28:56
Speaker 1: whilst masonry emphasizes this great truth, it indicates also, and
1:29:01
Speaker 1: this is its great virtue and real purpose, the method
1:29:04
Speaker 1: by which we may regain that which is lost to us.
1:29:07
Speaker 1: It holds out the great promise that, with divine assistance
1:29:10
Speaker 1: and by our own industry, the genuine realities of which
1:29:14
Speaker 1: we at present possess but the imperfect shadows, shall be
1:29:17
Speaker 1: restored to us, and that patience and perseverance will eventually
1:29:20
Speaker 1: entitle every worthy man to a participation in them. This
1:29:24
Speaker 1: large subject is mirrored in miniature in the craft ceremonial.
1:29:29
Speaker 1: The east of the lodge is the symbolic center, the
1:29:31
Speaker 1: source of all light, the place of the throne of
1:29:34
Speaker 1: the Master of all life. The west, the place of
1:29:37
Speaker 1: the disappearing sun, is this world of imperfection and darkness,
1:29:41
Speaker 1: from which the divine spiritual light is in large measure withdrawn,
1:29:44
Speaker 1: and only shines by reflection. The ceremonies through which the
1:29:49
Speaker 1: candidate passes are symbolic of the stages of progress that
1:29:52
Speaker 1: every man, whether a formal member of the craft or not,
1:29:55
Speaker 1: may make by way of self purification in self building,
1:29:59
Speaker 1: until he at length lies dead to his present natural self,
1:30:02
Speaker 1: and is raised out of a state of imperfection and
1:30:04
Speaker 1: brought once more into perfect union with the Lord of
1:30:07
Speaker 1: Life and glory, into whose image he has thus become
1:30:10
Speaker 1: shaped and conformed. It is in this large sense, then,
1:30:14
Speaker 1: that masonry may become for us, as indeed it was
1:30:17
Speaker 1: intended to become by those who instituted our present speculative system,
1:30:21
Speaker 1: a working philosophy for those brought within its influence. It
1:30:25
Speaker 1: supplies a need to those who are earnestly inquiring into
1:30:28
Speaker 1: the purpose and destiny of human life. It is a
1:30:31
Speaker 1: means of initiating into reliable knowledge those who feel that
1:30:34
Speaker 1: their knowledge of life and their path of life have
1:30:37
Speaker 1: hitherto been but a series of irregular steps made at
1:30:40
Speaker 1: haphazard and under hoodwinked conditions as to whither they are going.
1:30:44
Speaker 1: Not without good reason does our catechism assert that Masonry
1:30:47
Speaker 1: contains many and invaluable secrets. But these, of course are
1:30:52
Speaker 1: not the formal and symbolic signs, tokens, and words communicated
1:30:56
Speaker 1: ceremonially to candidates. They are rather those secrets which we
1:30:59
Speaker 1: instinctively keep locked up in the recesses and safe repository
1:31:03
Speaker 1: of our hearts, secrets of the deep and hidden things
1:31:06
Speaker 1: of the soul about which we do not often talk,
1:31:08
Speaker 1: and which, by a natural instinct, we are not in
1:31:11
Speaker 1: the habit of communicating to any but such of our
1:31:14
Speaker 1: brethren and fellows as share with us a common and
1:31:16
Speaker 1: a sympathetic interest in them deeper problems and mysteries of life.
1:31:22
Speaker 1: I have said already that masonry is a modern perpetuation
1:31:25
Speaker 1: of great systems of initiation that have existed for the
1:31:28
Speaker 1: spiritual instruction of men in all parts of the world
1:31:31
Speaker 1: since the beginning of time. The reason for their existence
1:31:34
Speaker 1: has been the obvious one, resulting from the cardinal truth
1:31:38
Speaker 1: already alluded to, that man in his present natural state
1:31:41
Speaker 1: is inherently and radically imperfect, that sooner or later he
1:31:44
Speaker 1: becomes conscious of a sense of loss and deprivation, and
1:31:47
Speaker 1: feels an imperative need of learning how to repair that loss.
1:31:51
Speaker 1: The great world religions have been ordained to teach, in
1:31:54
Speaker 1: their respective manners the same truths as the mystery systems
1:31:57
Speaker 1: have taught. Their teaching has always been twofold. There has
1:32:02
Speaker 1: always existed an external, elementary popular doctrine which has served
1:32:06
Speaker 1: for the instruction of the masses who are insufficiently prepared
1:32:09
Speaker 1: for deeper teaching, And concurrently therewith there has been an
1:32:12
Speaker 1: interior advanced doctrine, a more secret knowledge which has been
1:32:16
Speaker 1: reserved for riper minds, and into which only proficient and
1:32:19
Speaker 1: properly prepared candidates who voluntarily sought to participate in it
1:32:23
Speaker 1: were initiated, whether in ancient India, Egypt, Greece, Italy, or Mexico,
1:32:30
Speaker 1: or among the druids of Europe. Temples of initiation have
1:32:33
Speaker 1: ever existed for those who felt the inward call to
1:32:35
Speaker 1: come apart from the multitude and to dedicate themselves to
1:32:38
Speaker 1: a long discipline of body and mind, with a view
1:32:41
Speaker 1: to acquiring the secret knowledge and developing the spiritual faculties
1:32:45
Speaker 1: by means of experimental processes of initiation, of which our
1:32:48
Speaker 1: present ceremonies are the faint echo. It is far beyond
1:32:52
Speaker 1: my present scope to describe any of these great systems
1:32:55
Speaker 1: or the methods of initiation they employed, But in regard
1:32:59
Speaker 1: to them, I will ask you to accept my statement
1:33:01
Speaker 1: upon two points. One that although these great schools of
1:33:04
Speaker 1: the mysteries have long dropped out of the public mind,
1:33:07
Speaker 1: they or the doctrine they taught, have never ceased to exist.
1:33:11
Speaker 1: The enmity of official ecclesiasticism and the tendencies of a
1:33:14
Speaker 1: materialistic and commercial age have caused them to subside into
1:33:18
Speaker 1: extreme secrecy and concealment, but their initiates have never been
1:33:21
Speaker 1: absent from the world. And two, that it was through
1:33:25
Speaker 1: the activity and foresight of some of these advanced initiates
1:33:29
Speaker 1: that our present system of speculative masonry is due. You
1:33:33
Speaker 1: must not imply from this that modern masonry is by
1:33:36
Speaker 1: any means a full or adequate presentation of these older
1:33:39
Speaker 1: and larger systems. It is but their pale and elementary shadow.
1:33:44
Speaker 1: But such as they are, and so far as they
1:33:47
Speaker 1: do go, our rituals and doctrine are an authentic embodiment
1:33:51
Speaker 1: of a secret doctrine and a secret process that have
1:33:53
Speaker 1: always existed for the enlightenment of such aspirants as putting
1:33:57
Speaker 1: their trust in God, as our present candidates are made
1:33:59
Speaker 1: to have knocked at the door of certain secret sanctuaries,
1:34:03
Speaker 1: in the confidence that that door would open, and that
1:34:05
Speaker 1: they would find in due course that for which they
1:34:07
Speaker 1: were seeking. Those who instituted modern speculative masonry some two
1:34:12
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years ago took certain materials lying ready
1:34:15
Speaker 1: to hand. They took, that is, the elementary rights and
1:34:19
Speaker 1: symbols pertaining to medieval operative guilds of stone masons, and
1:34:23
Speaker 1: transformed them into a system of religio philosophic doctrine. Thenceforward,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: from being related to the trade which deals in stones
1:34:31
Speaker 1: and bricks, the intention of masonry was to deal solely
1:34:34
Speaker 1: and simply with the greater science of soul building, and
1:34:37
Speaker 1: save for retaining certain analogies which the art of the
1:34:40
Speaker 1: practical stone mason provided. Thenceforward it became dedicated to purposes
1:34:44
Speaker 1: that are wholly spiritual, religious, and philosophic. Perhaps the chief
1:34:49
Speaker 1: evidence of the transformation thus effected was the incorporation of
1:34:53
Speaker 1: the central legend and traditional history comprised in our third degree. Obviously,
1:34:58
Speaker 1: that legend can have had no relation or practical bearing
1:35:01
Speaker 1: upon the operative builder's trade. I will ask you to
1:35:05
Speaker 1: reflect that no building of stone, no temple or other
1:35:09
Speaker 1: edifice capable of being built with hands, has remained unfinished
1:35:12
Speaker 1: through the death of any professional architect, such as Hiram
1:35:15
Speaker 1: Abiff is popularly supposed to have been the principles of architecture.
1:35:20
Speaker 1: The genuine secrets of the building trade are not, and
1:35:23
Speaker 1: never have been lost. They are thoroughly well known, and
1:35:26
Speaker 1: the absurdity is manifest of supposing that masons of any
1:35:29
Speaker 1: kind are waiting for time or circumstances to restore any
1:35:33
Speaker 1: lost knowledge as to the manner in which temporal buildings
1:35:35
Speaker 1: ought to be constructed. We know how to erect buildings
1:35:39
Speaker 1: today quite as well as our Hebrew forefathers did, who
1:35:42
Speaker 1: built the famous temple at Jerusalem, and indeed a well
1:35:45
Speaker 1: known architect has stated that most of our London churches are,
1:35:48
Speaker 1: both for size and ornamentation, far larger and more splendid
1:35:52
Speaker 1: than that temple ever was. Our duty, then, is to
1:35:56
Speaker 1: look behind the literal story, to pierce the veil of
1:35:59
Speaker 1: allegory contained in the great legend, and to grasp the
1:36:01
Speaker 1: significance of its true purport. That which is lost is
1:36:05
Speaker 1: to be found. We are told with the center. But
1:36:09
Speaker 1: if we inquire what a center is, the average mason
1:36:12
Speaker 1: will give you nothing more than the official, enigmatic, and
1:36:15
Speaker 1: not very luminous answer that it is a point within
1:36:17
Speaker 1: a circle from which every part of the circumference is equidistant.
1:36:21
Speaker 1: But what circle and what circumference? For there are no
1:36:25
Speaker 1: such things as centers or circles in respect of ordinary
1:36:28
Speaker 1: buildings or architecture. And here the average mason is at
1:36:32
Speaker 1: an utter loss to explain. Press him further, why with
1:36:36
Speaker 1: the center? And again he can only give you the
1:36:39
Speaker 1: elusive and perplexing answer, because that is a point from
1:36:42
Speaker 1: which a master mason cannot err. And you are no
1:36:44
Speaker 1: wiser brethren. It is just this elusiveness, these intentional enigmas,
1:36:50
Speaker 1: this purpose puzzle language, that are intended to put us
1:36:53
Speaker 1: on the scent of something deeper than the words themselves convey.
1:36:56
Speaker 1: And if we fail to find, to realize, and to
1:36:58
Speaker 1: act upon the in tension of what is veiled behind
1:37:01
Speaker 1: the letter of the rituals, we can scarcely claim to
1:37:04
Speaker 1: understand our own doctrine. We can scarcely claim to have
1:37:07
Speaker 1: been regularly initiated, passed, and raised in the higher sense
1:37:10
Speaker 1: of those expressions. Whatever ceremonies we have formally passed through
1:37:16
Speaker 1: the letter killeth the spirit giveth life. Let us inquire
1:37:20
Speaker 1: what the spirit of this puzzle language is. The method
1:37:24
Speaker 1: of all great religious and initiatory systems has been to
1:37:27
Speaker 1: teach their doctrine in the form of myth, legend, or allegory.
1:37:31
Speaker 1: As our first tracing board lecture says, the philosophers, unwilling
1:37:36
Speaker 1: to expose their mysteries to vulgar eyes, concealed their tenets
1:37:39
Speaker 1: and principles of philosophy under hieroglyphical figures, and our traditional
1:37:44
Speaker 1: history is one of these hieroglyphical figures. Now, the literally
1:37:48
Speaker 1: minded never see behind the letter of the allegory. The
1:37:52
Speaker 1: truly initiated mind discerns the allegory's spiritual value in fact,
1:37:57
Speaker 1: part of the purpose of all initiation was and still
1:38:00
Speaker 1: is to educate the mind in penetrating the outward shell
1:38:04
Speaker 1: of all phenomena, and the value of initiation depends upon
1:38:07
Speaker 1: the way in which the inward truths are allowed to
1:38:09
Speaker 1: influence our thought and lives, and to awaken in us
1:38:12
Speaker 1: still deeper powers of consciousness. The legend of the third Degree, then,
1:38:17
Speaker 1: in which the essence of Masonic doctrine lies, was brought
1:38:20
Speaker 1: into our system by some advanced minds who derived their
1:38:23
Speaker 1: knowledge from other and concealed sources. The legend is an
1:38:27
Speaker 1: adaptation of a very old one, and existed in various
1:38:30
Speaker 1: forms long before its association with modern masonry. In the
1:38:35
Speaker 1: guise of a story about the building of a temple
1:38:37
Speaker 1: by King Solomon at Jerusalem. They were promulgating the truth
1:38:41
Speaker 1: which I have alluded to before, and which is generally
1:38:43
Speaker 1: known as the fall of Man. As our legend runs
1:38:47
Speaker 1: upon the literal side of it, it was the purpose
1:38:49
Speaker 1: of a great king to erect a superb structure. He
1:38:53
Speaker 1: was assisted in that work by another king, who supplied
1:38:56
Speaker 1: the building materials, by a skillful artificer whose business was
1:38:59
Speaker 1: to put both these together. According to a preordained plan
1:39:02
Speaker 1: and by large companies of craftsmen and laborers. But in
1:39:06
Speaker 1: the course of the work, an evil conspiracy arose, resulting
1:39:09
Speaker 1: in the destruction of the chief artificer and preventing the
1:39:12
Speaker 1: completion of the building, which remains unfinished. Therefore, to this day,
1:39:17
Speaker 1: now I will ask you to observe that this legend
1:39:20
Speaker 1: cannot refer to any historical building built in the old
1:39:23
Speaker 1: metropolis of Palestine. If we refer to the Bible as
1:39:26
Speaker 1: an authority, you will find that that temple was completed,
1:39:29
Speaker 1: it was afterwards destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again on more
1:39:33
Speaker 1: than one occasion. Moreover, the Biblical accounts make no reference
1:39:37
Speaker 1: whatever to the conspiracy or to the death of Hiram.
1:39:41
Speaker 1: On the other hand, they stayed expressly that Hiram made
1:39:44
Speaker 1: an end of building the temple, that it was finished
1:39:47
Speaker 1: and completed in every particular. It is very clear then
1:39:51
Speaker 1: that we must keep the two subjects entirely separate in
1:39:54
Speaker 1: our minds, and recognize that the Masonic story deals with
1:39:57
Speaker 1: something quite distinct from the Biblical story. What temple, then
1:40:02
Speaker 1: is referred to the temple brethren that is still incomplete
1:40:06
Speaker 1: and unfinished, is none that can be built with hands.
1:40:09
Speaker 1: It is that temple of which all material edifices are
1:40:12
Speaker 1: but the types and symbols. It is the temple of
1:40:15
Speaker 1: the collective body of humanity itself, of which the Great
1:40:18
Speaker 1: Initiate Saint Paul said, know ye not that ye are
1:40:21
Speaker 1: the temple of God, a perfect humanity. Was the great temple, which,
1:40:25
Speaker 1: in the councils of the Most High, was intended to
1:40:28
Speaker 1: be reared in the mystical holy city, of which the
1:40:31
Speaker 1: local Jerusalem was the type. The three great master builders,
1:40:35
Speaker 1: Solomon and the two Hireums, are a triad corresponding after
1:40:39
Speaker 1: a manner, with the Holy Trinity of the Christian religion.
1:40:42
Speaker 1: Hiram Abiff being the chief architect, he by whom all
1:40:45
Speaker 1: things were made, and in whom, as Saint Paul said
1:40:49
Speaker 1: using Masonic language, the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth
1:40:53
Speaker 1: unto a holy temple in the Lord. The material of
1:40:56
Speaker 1: this mystical temple was the souls of men at once
1:40:59
Speaker 1: the life, having stones, the fellow craftsmen and collaborators with
1:41:03
Speaker 1: the divine purpose. But in the course of the construction
1:41:06
Speaker 1: of this ideal temple, something happened that wrecked the scheme
1:41:09
Speaker 1: and delayed the fulfillment indefinitely. This was the fall of man,
1:41:14
Speaker 1: the conspiracy of the craftsmen. Turn to the Book of Genesis,
1:41:18
Speaker 1: you will find the same subject related in the allegory
1:41:21
Speaker 1: of Adam and Eve. They were intended, as you know,
1:41:25
Speaker 1: for perfection and happiness, but their creator's project became nullified
1:41:29
Speaker 1: by their disobedience to certain conditions imposed upon them. I
1:41:33
Speaker 1: will ask you to observe that their offense was precisely
1:41:36
Speaker 1: that committed by our Masonic conspirators. They had been forbidden
1:41:40
Speaker 1: to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, or in Masonic language,
1:41:44
Speaker 1: they were under obligation not to attempt to extort the
1:41:47
Speaker 1: secrets of a superior degree, which they had not attained. Now,
1:41:51
Speaker 1: the Hebrew word Hiram means guru, teacher of supreme knowledge,
1:41:55
Speaker 1: divine light and wisdom, and the liberty that comes therewith.
1:42:00
Speaker 1: But this knowledge is only for the perfected man. It
1:42:03
Speaker 1: is that knowledge that Hiram said was known to but
1:42:06
Speaker 1: three in the world, i e. Known only in the
1:42:09
Speaker 1: councils of the Divine Trinity. But it is knowledge that,
1:42:12
Speaker 1: with patience and perseverance, every Mason, every child of the Creator,
1:42:16
Speaker 1: may in due time become entitled to a participation in
1:42:20
Speaker 1: But just as Adam and Eve's attempt to obtain illicit
1:42:23
Speaker 1: knowledge caused their expulsion from Eden and defeated the Divine
1:42:26
Speaker 1: purpose until they and their posterity should regain the paradise
1:42:29
Speaker 1: they had lost, so also the completion of the Great
1:42:32
Speaker 1: Mystical Temple was prevented for the time being by the
1:42:35
Speaker 1: conspirator's attempt to extort from Hiram the Master's secrets, and
1:42:38
Speaker 1: its construction is delayed until time and circumstances. God's time
1:42:43
Speaker 1: and the circumstances we create for ourselves restore to us
1:42:47
Speaker 1: the lost and genuine secrets of our nature and of
1:42:50
Speaker 1: the Divine purpose in us. The tragedy of Hiram Abyff, then,
1:42:55
Speaker 1: is not the record of any vulgar, brutal murder of
1:42:58
Speaker 1: an individual man. It is a parable of cosmic and
1:43:02
Speaker 1: universal loss, an allegory of the breakdown of a divine scheme.
1:43:07
Speaker 1: We are dealing with no calamity that occurred during the
1:43:09
Speaker 1: erection of a building in an eastern city, but with
1:43:12
Speaker 1: a moral disaster to universal humanity. Hiram is slain. In
1:43:17
Speaker 1: other words, the faculty of enlightened wisdom has been cut
1:43:20
Speaker 1: off from us, owing to that disaster. Mankind is here
1:43:24
Speaker 1: today in this world of imperfect knowledge, of limited faculties,
1:43:28
Speaker 1: of checkered happiness, of perpetual toil, of death, and frequent
1:43:31
Speaker 1: bitterness and pain. Our life here is, to use a
1:43:34
Speaker 1: poet's words, an ever moaning battle in the mist, death,
1:43:39
Speaker 1: in all life, and lying in all love, the meanest,
1:43:41
Speaker 1: having power upon the highest and the high purpose broken
1:43:45
Speaker 1: by the worm. The temple of human nature is unfinished,
1:43:49
Speaker 1: and we know not how to complete it. The want
1:43:52
Speaker 1: of plans and designs to regulate the disorders of individual
1:43:55
Speaker 1: and social life indicates to us all that some heavy
1:43:58
Speaker 1: calamity has befallen us as a race. The absence of
1:44:01
Speaker 1: a clear and guiding principle in the world's life reminds
1:44:04
Speaker 1: us of the utter confusion into which the absence of
1:44:07
Speaker 1: that supreme wisdom, which is personified as Hiram, has thrown
1:44:11
Speaker 1: us all, and causes every reflective mind to attribute to
1:44:14
Speaker 1: some fatal catastrophe his mysterious disappearance. We all long for
1:44:19
Speaker 1: that light and wisdom which have become lost to us.
1:44:22
Speaker 1: Like the craftsmen in search of the body, we go
1:44:25
Speaker 1: our different ways in search of what is lost. Many
1:44:29
Speaker 1: of us make no discovery of importance throughout the length
1:44:32
Speaker 1: of our days. We seek it in pleasure, in work,
1:44:35
Speaker 1: in all the varied occupations and diversions of our lives.
1:44:39
Speaker 1: We seek it in intellectual pursuits, in religion, in masonry.
1:44:43
Speaker 1: And those who search farthest and deepest are those who
1:44:45
Speaker 1: become most conscious of the loss, and who are compelled
1:44:48
Speaker 1: to cry machibone macbina. The Master is smitten, or as
1:44:54
Speaker 1: the Christian scriptures word it, they have taken away my lord,
1:44:57
Speaker 1: and I know not where they have laid him. Hiram
1:45:00
Speaker 1: Abyff is slain. The high light and wisdom ordained to
1:45:04
Speaker 1: guide and enlighten humanity are wanting to us. The full
1:45:08
Speaker 1: blaze of light and perfect knowledge that were to be
1:45:11
Speaker 1: ours are vanished from the race. But in the divine providence,
1:45:14
Speaker 1: there still remains to us a glimmering light in the east,
1:45:18
Speaker 1: in a dark world from which, as it were, the
1:45:20
Speaker 1: sun has disappeared. We have still our five senses and
1:45:23
Speaker 1: our rational faculties to work with, and these provide us
1:45:26
Speaker 1: with the substituted secrets that must distinguish us before we
1:45:29
Speaker 1: regain the genuine ones. Where is Hiram buried? We are
1:45:34
Speaker 1: taught that the wisdom of the Most High, personified as
1:45:37
Speaker 1: King Solomon, ordered him to be interred in a fitting
1:45:40
Speaker 1: sepulcher outside the Holy City, in a grave from the
1:45:43
Speaker 1: center three feet between N and S, three feet between
1:45:47
Speaker 1: E and W, and five feet or more perpendicular. Where, brethren,
1:45:52
Speaker 1: do you imagine that grave to be? Can you locate
1:45:56
Speaker 1: it by following these minute details of its situation? Probably
1:46:00
Speaker 1: you have never thought of the matter as other than
1:46:02
Speaker 1: an ordinary burial outside the walls of a geographical Jerusalem.
1:46:06
Speaker 1: But the grave of Hiram is ourselves. Each of us
1:46:10
Speaker 1: is the sepulcher in which the smitten Master is interred.
1:46:14
Speaker 1: If we know it not, it is a further sign
1:46:16
Speaker 1: of our benightedness. At the center of ourselves, deeper than
1:46:20
Speaker 1: any dissecting knife can reach, or than any physical investigation
1:46:24
Speaker 1: can fathom, lies buried the vital and immortal principle, the
1:46:27
Speaker 1: glimmering ray that affiliates us to the divine center of
1:46:30
Speaker 1: all life, and that is never wholly extinguished, however evil
1:46:34
Speaker 1: or imperfect our lives may be. We are the grave
1:46:37
Speaker 1: of the Master. The lost guiding light is buried at
1:46:41
Speaker 1: the center of ourselves. High as your hand may reach
1:46:45
Speaker 1: upwards or downwards from the center of your own body
1:46:47
Speaker 1: i e. Three feet between N and S, far as
1:46:51
Speaker 1: it can reach to right or left of the middle
1:46:52
Speaker 1: of your person i e. Three feet between W and
1:46:56
Speaker 1: E dot and five feet or more perpendicular the height
1:46:59
Speaker 1: of the human body. These are the indications by which
1:47:02
Speaker 1: our cryptic ritual describes the tomb of Hiram Abiff at
1:47:05
Speaker 1: the center of ourselves. He is buried outside the Holy City,
1:47:10
Speaker 1: in the same sense that the posterity of Adam have
1:47:12
Speaker 1: all been placed outside the walls of Paradise, for nothing
1:47:16
Speaker 1: unclean can enter into the holy Place, which elsewhere in
1:47:19
Speaker 1: our scriptures is called the Kingdom of Heaven. What then,
1:47:22
Speaker 1: is this center, by reviving and using which we may
1:47:25
Speaker 1: hope to regain the secrets of our lost nature? We
1:47:28
Speaker 1: may reason from analogies, as the divine life and will
1:47:32
Speaker 1: is the center of the whole universe and controls it,
1:47:35
Speaker 1: as the Sun is the center and life giver of
1:47:37
Speaker 1: our solar system and controls and feeds with life the
1:47:40
Speaker 1: planets circling round it. So at the secret center of
1:47:43
Speaker 1: individual human life exists a vital immortal principle, the spirit
1:47:48
Speaker 1: and the spiritual will of man. This is the faculty
1:47:51
Speaker 1: by using which, when we have found it, we can
1:47:54
Speaker 1: never air. It is a point within the circle of
1:47:57
Speaker 1: our own nature and living as we do in theas
1:48:00
Speaker 1: this physical world. The circle of our existence is bounded
1:48:03
Speaker 1: by two grand parallel lines, one representing Moses, the other
1:48:07
Speaker 1: King Solomon. That is to say, law and wisdom, the
1:48:10
Speaker 1: divine ordinances regulating the universe on the one hand, the
1:48:14
Speaker 1: divine wisdom and mercy that follow us all the days
1:48:17
Speaker 1: of our life on the other. Very truly, then, the
1:48:20
Speaker 1: mason who keeps himself thus circumscribed cannot air. Masonry, then,
1:48:25
Speaker 1: is a system of religious philosophy, in that it provides
1:48:28
Speaker 1: us with a doctrine of the universe and of our
1:48:30
Speaker 1: place in it. It indicates whence we are come and
1:48:33
Speaker 1: whither we may return. It has two purposes. Its first
1:48:38
Speaker 1: purpose is to show that man has fallen away from
1:48:41
Speaker 1: a high and holy center to the circumference or externalized
1:48:44
Speaker 1: condition in which we now live. To indicate that those
1:48:47
Speaker 1: who so desire may regain that center by finding the
1:48:50
Speaker 1: center in ourselves. For since deity is as a circle
1:48:53
Speaker 1: whose center is everywhere, it follows that a divine center,
1:48:57
Speaker 1: vital and immortal principle exists within ourselves by developing which
1:49:02
Speaker 1: we may hope to regain our lost and primal stature.
1:49:05
Speaker 1: The second purpose of the craft doctrine is to declare
1:49:08
Speaker 1: the way by which that center may be found within ourselves,
1:49:11
Speaker 1: and this teaching is embodied in the discipline and ordeals
1:49:14
Speaker 1: delineated in the three degrees. The Masonic doctrine of the center,
1:49:19
Speaker 1: or in other words, the Christian axiom that the Kingdom
1:49:23
Speaker 1: of Heaven is within you, is nowhere better stated than
1:49:26
Speaker 1: by the poet Browning. Truth is within ourselves. It takes
1:49:31
Speaker 1: no rise from outward things. Whatever you may believe, there
1:49:35
Speaker 1: is an inmost center in ourselves where truth abides in fullness,
1:49:39
Speaker 1: and to no rather consists in finding out a way,
1:49:42
Speaker 1: whence the imprisoned splendor may escape them by affecting entrance
1:49:45
Speaker 1: for a light supposed to be without. Brethren, May we
1:49:49
Speaker 1: all come to the knowledge how to open the lodge
1:49:51
Speaker 1: upon the center of ourselves, and so realize in our
1:49:54
Speaker 1: own conscious experience the finding of the imprisoned splendor hidden
1:49:58
Speaker 1: in the depths of our being, whose rising within ourselves
1:50:01
Speaker 1: will bring us peace and salvation. How then, does the
1:50:05
Speaker 1: craft doctrine prescribe for the liberation of this imprisoned center.
1:50:09
Speaker 1: Its first injunctions are those of our first degree. There
1:50:13
Speaker 1: must be purity of thought and purpose. I need scarcely
1:50:17
Speaker 1: remind you that the word candidate derives from the Latin
1:50:20
Speaker 1: candidates white in the sense of purity, or that are postulants.
1:50:24
Speaker 1: Before entering the lodge, leave behind them in the precincts
1:50:26
Speaker 1: the garments that belong to the fashion of the outer world,
1:50:29
Speaker 1: whose ideals they are desirous of relinquishing, and enter the
1:50:32
Speaker 1: lodge clad in white, as emblematic of the blamelessness of
1:50:35
Speaker 1: their thought and the purification of their lives. As this
1:50:39
Speaker 1: symbolic white clothing is worn during each of the three degrees,
1:50:43
Speaker 1: it is as though the seeker, after the high light
1:50:45
Speaker 1: of the center, must always come uttering the triple ascription wholly, wholly, wholly,
1:50:50
Speaker 1: as the token of the threefold purity of body, soul,
1:50:53
Speaker 1: and spirit, which is essential to the achievement of his quest.
1:50:57
Speaker 1: He has left all money in metals behind him, for
1:51:00
Speaker 1: the gross things of this world are superfluous in the
1:51:02
Speaker 1: world that lies within, Whilst if any dross of thought
1:51:05
Speaker 1: or imperfections of character remain in him, he will find
1:51:08
Speaker 1: the impossibility of attaining to the consciousness of his highest self.
1:51:12
Speaker 1: He will learn that he must renounce them and begin again,
1:51:15
Speaker 1: and that his attempt at real initiation must be repeated.
1:51:19
Speaker 1: He must be animated by a spirit of universal sympathy.
1:51:23
Speaker 1: Financial doles and practical relief to the pecuniarily poor and
1:51:27
Speaker 1: distressed are admirable practices as far as they go, but
1:51:30
Speaker 1: they by no means exhaust the meaning of the term
1:51:32
Speaker 1: charity as Masonry intends it. The payment of a few
1:51:36
Speaker 1: guineas to philanthropic institutions is scarcely a fulfillment of Saint
1:51:40
Speaker 1: Paul's great definition of charity, so often read in our lodges.
1:51:44
Speaker 1: By exercising which we are wont to say that a
1:51:46
Speaker 1: Mason attains the summit of his profession, there is a
1:51:50
Speaker 1: far larger sense of brotherhood than the limited, conventional one
1:51:53
Speaker 1: obtaining among those who are members of a common association.
1:51:57
Speaker 1: There is that deep sense in which a man feels
1:51:59
Speaker 1: himself not only in fraternity with his fellow men, whether
1:52:02
Speaker 1: masonically his brethren or not, but realizes himself brother to
1:52:06
Speaker 1: all that is part of the universal life that thrills
1:52:09
Speaker 1: through all things a great illuminate. Saint Francis of ASSISI
1:52:14
Speaker 1: expressed what I refer to when he wrote in his
1:52:16
Speaker 1: famous canticle of his brothers, the Sun and the Wind,
1:52:19
Speaker 1: his sisters, the moon and the sea, his brethren, the
1:52:22
Speaker 1: animals and the birds, as being all parts of a
1:52:24
Speaker 1: common life, all constituents in the scheme of the Great
1:52:27
Speaker 1: Architect for the restoration of the Temple of Creation and
1:52:30
Speaker 1: its dedication to his service, and as all worthy of
1:52:33
Speaker 1: a common love upon our part, even as they are
1:52:36
Speaker 1: the subject of a common solicitude upon his. And passing
1:52:41
Speaker 1: from these primary qualifications, we proceed to what is signified
1:52:45
Speaker 1: by our second degree, wherein is inculcated the analysis and
1:52:48
Speaker 1: cultivation of the mental and rational faculties, the study of
1:52:52
Speaker 1: the secrets of the marvelous, complex psychical nature of man,
1:52:56
Speaker 1: the relation of these with the still higher and spiritual
1:52:58
Speaker 1: part of him, which in us he may learn to
1:53:01
Speaker 1: trace even to the throne of God himself, with which
1:53:04
Speaker 1: he is affiliated at the rude essence of his being.
1:53:07
Speaker 1: These studies, brethren, so lightly touched upon in our passing ceremony,
1:53:12
Speaker 1: so glibly referred to as we recite our ritual, when
1:53:15
Speaker 1: undertaken with the seriousness that attached to them in the
1:53:18
Speaker 1: old mystery systems are not without just reason described in
1:53:21
Speaker 1: our own words as serious, solemn, and awful. The depths
1:53:26
Speaker 1: of human nature and self knowledge, the hidden mysteries of
1:53:29
Speaker 1: the soul of man, are not as real initiates well know,
1:53:32
Speaker 1: probed into with impunity except by the properly prepared. The
1:53:37
Speaker 1: man who does so has, as it were, a cable
1:53:40
Speaker 1: toe around his neck, because when once stirred by a
1:53:43
Speaker 1: genuine desire for the higher knowledge that real initiation is
1:53:46
Speaker 1: intended to confer, he can never turn back on what
1:53:49
Speaker 1: he learns thereof without committing moral suicide. He can never
1:53:52
Speaker 1: be again the same man he was before he gained
1:53:55
Speaker 1: a glimpse of the hidden mysteries of life. And as
1:53:58
Speaker 1: the Angel stood with a flaming soar at the entrance
1:54:01
Speaker 1: of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life,
1:54:03
Speaker 1: so will the man whose initiation is not a conventional
1:54:06
Speaker 1: one find himself threatened at the door of the higher
1:54:08
Speaker 1: knowledge by opposing invisible forces. If he rashly rushes forward,
1:54:12
Speaker 1: in a state of moral unfitness, into the deep secrets
1:54:15
Speaker 1: of the center, better remain ignorant than embark upon this
1:54:19
Speaker 1: unknown sea unwisely and without being properly prepared and in
1:54:22
Speaker 1: possession of the proper passports. And eventually the aspirant, after
1:54:27
Speaker 1: these preliminary disciplines, has to learn the great truth embodied
1:54:31
Speaker 1: in the third degree, that he who would be raised
1:54:33
Speaker 1: to perfection and regain what he has long realized has
1:54:36
Speaker 1: been lost to himself, may do so only by utter
1:54:39
Speaker 1: self abnegation, by a dying to all that to the
1:54:41
Speaker 1: eyes and the reason of the uninitiated outer world is
1:54:44
Speaker 1: precious and desirable. The third degree, Brethren, is an exposition
1:54:49
Speaker 1: in dramatic ceremonial of the text whoso would save his
1:54:52
Speaker 1: life must lose it beneath the allegory of the death
1:54:56
Speaker 1: of the Master, And remember that it is allegory, is
1:54:59
Speaker 1: expressed the universal truth that mystical death must precede mystical rebirth.
1:55:04
Speaker 1: Know ye not that ye must be born again unless
1:55:07
Speaker 1: a grain of corn fall into the ground and die,
1:55:10
Speaker 1: It abboteth alone. If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
1:55:15
Speaker 1: And it is only thus that all master Masons can
1:55:17
Speaker 1: be raised from a figurative, not a physical death, to
1:55:20
Speaker 1: a regenerated state and to the full stature of human nature.
1:55:25
Speaker 1: The path of true initiation into fullness of life by
1:55:28
Speaker 1: way of a figurative death to one's lower self, is
1:55:30
Speaker 1: the path called in the scriptures the narrow way, of
1:55:33
Speaker 1: which it is also said that few there be who
1:55:36
Speaker 1: find it. It is the narrow path between the pillars.
1:55:39
Speaker 1: For Boaz and Jatchan stand impliedly at the entrance of
1:55:43
Speaker 1: every Masonic temple, and between them we pass each time
1:55:45
Speaker 1: we enter the lodge. Very great prominence is accorded these
1:55:49
Speaker 1: pillars in the ritual, but very little explanation of their
1:55:52
Speaker 1: import is given, and it is desirable to know something
1:55:55
Speaker 1: of their great significance. To deal with them at all
1:55:59
Speaker 1: fullywood require an entire lecture upon this one subject, and
1:56:03
Speaker 1: even then there would have to remain unsaid in regard
1:56:05
Speaker 1: to these great symbols much that is unsuited to treatment
1:56:08
Speaker 1: in a general lecture. The pillars form and have always formed,
1:56:13
Speaker 1: a prominent feature in the temples of all great systems
1:56:16
Speaker 1: of religion and initiation, whether Masonic or not. They have
1:56:20
Speaker 1: been incorporated into Christian architecture. If you recall the construction
1:56:25
Speaker 1: of york Minster or Westminster Abbey, you will recognize the
1:56:28
Speaker 1: pillars in the two great Towers flanking the main entrance
1:56:31
Speaker 1: to those cathedrals at the west end of the structure.
1:56:34
Speaker 1: Non Masons therefore enter these temples as we do. Between
1:56:38
Speaker 1: the pillars in the west, they look through them along
1:56:41
Speaker 1: the straight path that leads to the high Altar, just
1:56:44
Speaker 1: as the mason symbolic passage is also from the west
1:56:47
Speaker 1: to the throne in the east. That path is, as
1:56:50
Speaker 1: it were, the straight path of life, beginning in this
1:56:53
Speaker 1: outer world and terminating at the throne or altar in
1:56:56
Speaker 1: the east. Many centuries before our bio was written, or
1:57:00
Speaker 1: the Temple of Solomon described in the Books of Kings
1:57:03
Speaker 1: and Chronicles was thought of, the two pillars were used
1:57:06
Speaker 1: in the great temples of the mysteries in Egypt, and
1:57:09
Speaker 1: one of the great annual public festivals was that of
1:57:11
Speaker 1: the setting up of the pillars. What then, did they signify?
1:57:17
Speaker 1: I can deal with the subject, but very superficially. Here.
1:57:21
Speaker 1: In one of their aspects, they stand for what is
1:57:23
Speaker 1: known in Eastern philosophy as the pairs of opposites. Everything
1:57:28
Speaker 1: in nature is dual and can only be known in
1:57:30
Speaker 1: contrast with its opposite, whilst the two in combination produce
1:57:34
Speaker 1: a metaphysical third, which is their synthesis and perfect balance.
1:57:38
Speaker 1: Thus we have good and evil, light and darkness, and
1:57:41
Speaker 1: one of the pillars was always white and the other black,
1:57:44
Speaker 1: active and passive, positive and negative, yes and no, outside
1:57:49
Speaker 1: and inside. Man and woman. Neither of these is complete
1:57:53
Speaker 1: without the other. Taken together, they form stability. Morning and
1:57:57
Speaker 1: evening unite to form the complete day. Man is proverbially
1:58:01
Speaker 1: imperfect without his better half woman. The two marry to
1:58:05
Speaker 1: impart strength to each other and to establish their common house.
1:58:09
Speaker 1: Physical science shows all matter to be composed of positive
1:58:13
Speaker 1: and negative electric forces in perfect balance, and that things
1:58:16
Speaker 1: would disintegrate and disappear if they did not stand firm
1:58:19
Speaker 1: in perfect union. Every drop of healthy blood in our
1:58:23
Speaker 1: bodies is a combination of red and white corpusals, by
1:58:26
Speaker 1: the due balance of which we are established in strength
1:58:29
Speaker 1: and health, whilst lack of balance is attended by disease.
1:58:33
Speaker 1: The pillars therefore typify in one of their aspects perfect
1:58:37
Speaker 1: integrity of body in souls, such as are essential to
1:58:40
Speaker 1: achieving spiritual perfection. In the terms of ancient philosophy, all
1:58:44
Speaker 1: created things are composed of fire and water, fire being
1:58:48
Speaker 1: their spiritual and water their material element, and so the
1:58:51
Speaker 1: pillars represented also these universal properties. In one of the
1:58:55
Speaker 1: apocryphal scriptures two Esdras seven seven to eight, the path
1:59:00
Speaker 1: to true wisdom and life is spoken of as an
1:59:03
Speaker 1: entrance between a fire on the right hand and a
1:59:05
Speaker 1: deep water on the left, and so narrow and painful
1:59:08
Speaker 1: that only one man may go through it at once.
1:59:12
Speaker 1: This is an allusion to the narrow and painful path
1:59:14
Speaker 1: of real initiation, of which our entrance into the lodge
1:59:17
Speaker 1: between the pillars is a symbol. Now all great symbols
1:59:21
Speaker 1: are shadowed forth in the person of man himself. The
1:59:25
Speaker 1: human organism is the true lodge that must be opened,
1:59:28
Speaker 1: and wherein the great mysteries are to be found. And
1:59:31
Speaker 1: our lodge rooms are so built and furnished as to
1:59:33
Speaker 1: typify the human organism. The lower and physical part of
1:59:37
Speaker 1: us is animal and earthy, and rests like the base
1:59:40
Speaker 1: of Jacob's ladder upon the earth, whilst our higher portion
1:59:44
Speaker 1: is spiritual and reaches to the heavens. These two portions
1:59:48
Speaker 1: of ourselves are in perpetual conflict, the spiritual and the carnal,
1:59:52
Speaker 1: ever warring against one another. And he alone is the
1:59:55
Speaker 1: wise man who has learned to effect a perfect balance
1:59:58
Speaker 1: between them, and to establish himself and strength, so that
2:00:00
Speaker 1: his own inward house stands firm against all weakness and temptation.
2:00:05
Speaker 1: And in still another sense, the two pillars may be
2:00:08
Speaker 1: seen exemplified in the human body. There are two legs,
2:00:12
Speaker 1: upon both of which we must stand firm to acquire
2:00:15
Speaker 1: a perfect physical balance. And having discerned this simple truth,
2:00:19
Speaker 1: and having seen that the path of true initiation, which
2:00:22
Speaker 1: is one of spiritual rebirth, is an arduous and painful
2:00:26
Speaker 1: progress to him who undertakes it, let me ask you
2:00:28
Speaker 1: to consider, in all sacredness, another physical phenomenon, the great
2:00:32
Speaker 1: mystery of which we perhaps think little of, by reason
2:00:35
Speaker 1: of its frequency and of our familiarity with it. I
2:00:38
Speaker 1: refer to the incident the great mystery, I might say,
2:00:42
Speaker 1: of childbirth, Brethren, every child born into this world, coming
2:00:47
Speaker 1: into this life as into a great house of initiation,
2:00:50
Speaker 1: trial and discipline, passes amid pain and travail, through a
2:00:54
Speaker 1: straight and narrow way and between the two pillars that
2:00:57
Speaker 1: support the temple of its mother's body. And thus in
2:01:00
Speaker 1: the commonplaces of life, in which for those who have
2:01:03
Speaker 1: clean hearts, there is nothing common or unclean, but everything
2:01:06
Speaker 1: is sacred and symbolic. The act of physical birth is
2:01:09
Speaker 1: an image and a foreshadowing of that mystical rebirth, and
2:01:12
Speaker 1: of that passing through a straight gait and a narrow
2:01:14
Speaker 1: way in a deeper sense, without which it is written
2:01:17
Speaker 1: that a man shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
2:01:20
Speaker 1: The regenerated man, the man who not merely in ceremonial form,
2:01:24
Speaker 1: but in vital experience, has passed through the phases of
2:01:27
Speaker 1: which the Masonic degrees are the faint symbol, is alone
2:01:31
Speaker 1: worthy of the title of master Mason. In the building
2:01:33
Speaker 1: of the temple that is not made with hands, but
2:01:35
Speaker 1: that is being built invisibly out of the souls of
2:01:38
Speaker 1: just men, made perfect. Not only in this world is
2:01:41
Speaker 1: this temple being built. Only the foundations of the intended
2:01:44
Speaker 1: structure are perceptible. Here the craft contemplates other and loftier
2:01:49
Speaker 1: planes of life, other stories of the vast structure than
2:01:52
Speaker 1: this we live and work in. Just as our craft
2:01:55
Speaker 1: organization has its higher assemblies and councils in the form
2:01:59
Speaker 1: of the provincial and the grand lodges, that regulate and
2:02:01
Speaker 1: minister to the need of the lodges of common craftsmen,
2:02:04
Speaker 1: so in the mighty system of the universal structure, there
2:02:07
Speaker 1: are grades of higher life, hierarchies of celestial beings, working
2:02:11
Speaker 1: and ministering in the loftier portions of the building beyond
2:02:14
Speaker 1: our present ken And as here at the head of
2:02:17
Speaker 1: our limited and temporal brotherhood there rules a grand Master,
2:02:20
Speaker 1: so too, over the cosmic system there presides the great
2:02:23
Speaker 1: architect and most worshipful grand Master of all, whose officers
2:02:27
Speaker 1: are holy angels. And the recognition of this truth may
2:02:30
Speaker 1: tend to consecrate us. In the discharge of the little
2:02:32
Speaker 1: symbolic part we severally perform in a system which is
2:02:35
Speaker 1: the image of the great scheme. The world at large, Brethren, is,
2:02:40
Speaker 1: as it were, but one great lodge and place of initiation,
2:02:43
Speaker 1: of which our masonic lodges are the little mirrors. Mother
2:02:47
Speaker 1: Earth is also the mother lodge of us. All as
2:02:50
Speaker 1: its vast work goes on, souls are ever descending into it,
2:02:54
Speaker 1: and souls are being called out of it at the
2:02:56
Speaker 1: knox of some great unseen warden of life and death,
2:02:59
Speaker 1: who calls them here to labor and summons them hence
2:03:01
Speaker 1: for refreshment after the lodge, the festive board, after the
2:03:06
Speaker 1: labor of this world, the repast and refreshment of the
2:03:09
Speaker 1: heavenly places. And thus, although our after proceedings have no
2:03:13
Speaker 1: formal place in the Masonic system any more than the
2:03:16
Speaker 1: after life is in formal connection with us, whilst our
2:03:19
Speaker 1: sphere of activity is in this present world, still it
2:03:22
Speaker 1: plays a striking in appropriate part calculated to awaken us
2:03:25
Speaker 1: to the deep significance of our customary conviviality. Upon such
2:03:30
Speaker 1: occasions we are wont to drink the toast of the
2:03:32
Speaker 1: King and the Craft, remembering as loyal subjects and loving
2:03:36
Speaker 1: brethren our earthly sovereign in our Masonic comrades throughout the world.
2:03:40
Speaker 1: But here again I would ask every master who gives,
2:03:43
Speaker 1: and every brother who drinks this toast, to lift his
2:03:46
Speaker 1: thoughts to a greater King and to a larger craft
2:03:48
Speaker 1: than our limited and symbolic fraternity. I would remind you
2:03:52
Speaker 1: how in the Christian mysteries, there was another master whom
2:03:55
Speaker 1: unconsciously we imitate, who also after supper, took the cup,
2:03:59
Speaker 1: and when he had given thanks to the King of kings,
2:04:01
Speaker 1: pledged himself, as it were, to that larger craft which
2:04:05
Speaker 1: is coextensive with humanity itself, directing them in this manner
2:04:08
Speaker 1: to show forth symbolically a certain great mystery. Until his
2:04:11
Speaker 1: coming again. But this, brethren, is none other than what
2:04:16
Speaker 1: is implied in our own Masonic words, when we also
2:04:18
Speaker 1: are directed to use certain substituted secrets until time and
2:04:21
Speaker 1: circumstances shall restore to us the genuine ones. In submitting
2:04:26
Speaker 1: then these thoughts to you, it may be claimed that
2:04:29
Speaker 1: Masonry offers, to those capable of appreciating it, a working
2:04:32
Speaker 1: philosophy and a practical rule of life. It discloses to
2:04:37
Speaker 1: us the scheme of the universe, a scheme once shattered
2:04:39
Speaker 1: and arrested, but left in the hands of humanity to restore.
2:04:44
Speaker 1: It indicates our place, our purpose, and our destiny in
2:04:47
Speaker 1: that universe. It is as a great house of instruction
2:04:51
Speaker 1: and initiation into the mysteries of a larger and fuller
2:04:54
Speaker 1: life than the unenlightened worldling is as yet ripe for appreciating.
2:04:59
Speaker 1: Let us there therefore value and endeavor fully to appreciate
2:05:02
Speaker 1: its mysteries. Let us also be careful not to cheapen
2:05:06
Speaker 1: the order by failing to realize its meaning, and by
2:05:09
Speaker 1: admitting to its ranks those who are unready or unfitted
2:05:12
Speaker 1: to understand its import I said at the outset of
2:05:15
Speaker 1: this lecture that some Masons are beginning to awake to
2:05:18
Speaker 1: a larger consciousness of the true meaning in purport of
2:05:21
Speaker 1: our craft. I say now at the end, brethren, lift
2:05:26
Speaker 1: up your hearts, throw wide open the shutters of your
2:05:28
Speaker 1: minds and imaginations. Learn to see in masonry something more
2:05:33
Speaker 1: than a parochial system in joining elementary morality, performing perfunctory
2:05:37
Speaker 1: and meaningless rites, and serving as an agreeable accessory to
2:05:41
Speaker 1: social life. But look to find in it a living philosophy,
2:05:45
Speaker 1: a vital guide upon those matters which, of all others,
2:05:48
Speaker 1: are the most sacred and the most urgent to our
2:05:50
Speaker 1: ultimate well being. Realize that its secrets, which are many
2:05:54
Speaker 1: and invaluable, are not upon the surface, that they are
2:05:57
Speaker 1: not those of the tongue, but of the heart, And
2:05:59
Speaker 1: that but its mysteries are those eternal ones that treat
2:06:02
Speaker 1: of the spirit rather than of the body of man.
2:06:05
Speaker 1: And with this knowledge, clothe yourselves and enter the lodge,
2:06:08
Speaker 1: not merely the lodge room of our symbolic craft, but
2:06:12
Speaker 1: the larger lodge of life, wherein silently and without the
2:06:15
Speaker 1: sound of metal tool is preceding the perpetual work of
2:06:18
Speaker 1: rebuilding the unfinished and invisible temple of which the mystical
2:06:22
Speaker 1: stones and timber are the souls of men in that rebuilding.
2:06:26
Speaker 1: Men and women are taking part who, whilst formerly not
2:06:29
Speaker 1: members of our craft, are still unconsciously Masons in the
2:06:32
Speaker 1: best of senses. For whosoever is carefully and deliberately squaring
2:06:37
Speaker 1: his stone is fitting himself for his place in the
2:06:40
Speaker 1: intended structure, which gradually is being put together with exact nicety,
2:06:45
Speaker 1: and which, though erected by ourselves, one day, will become
2:06:48
Speaker 1: manifest to our clearer vision, and will appear more like
2:06:51
Speaker 1: the work of the great architect of the universe than
2:06:53
Speaker 1: that of human hands. Upon us. Masons, therefore, who have
2:06:58
Speaker 1: the advantage of a regular and organized system which provides
2:07:01
Speaker 1: and inculcates for us an outline of the great truths
2:07:04
Speaker 1: that we have been considering, and that always in the
2:07:06
Speaker 1: world have been regarded as secret, as sacred, and as vital.
2:07:10
Speaker 1: There rests the responsibility attaching to our privilege, and it
2:07:13
Speaker 1: must be our aim to endeavor to enter into the
2:07:16
Speaker 1: full heritage of understanding and practicing the system to which
2:07:19
Speaker 1: we belong. Chapter three further notes on craft symbolism. There
2:07:26
Speaker 1: is no darkness but ignorance, Shakespeare lighten our darkness. We
2:07:32
Speaker 1: beseech thee and defend us from all perils and dangers
2:07:35
Speaker 1: of this night Anglican Liturgy. Beloved, all Father, and all
2:07:40
Speaker 1: you Gods that haunt this place, grant me to be
2:07:43
Speaker 1: beautiful in the inner man, and all I have of
2:07:45
Speaker 1: outer things to be one with those within. May I
2:07:48
Speaker 1: count only the wise man rich. And may my store
2:07:51
Speaker 1: of gold be such as none but the good can
2:07:53
Speaker 1: bear anything more. That prayer, I think is enough for me.
2:08:00
Speaker 1: Fair of Socrates in the lecture on the First Degree
2:08:03
Speaker 1: tracing board, Masonry is spoken of as an art founded
2:08:07
Speaker 1: on the principles of geometry, and also as being a
2:08:10
Speaker 1: science dealing with the cultivation and improvement of the human mind.
2:08:14
Speaker 1: Its usages and customs are also there set to have
2:08:17
Speaker 1: derived from the ancient Egyptians, whose philosophers, unwilling to expose
2:08:21
Speaker 1: their mysteries to vulgar eyes, conceal their principles in philosophy
2:08:25
Speaker 1: under signs and symbols, which are still perpetuated in the
2:08:28
Speaker 1: Masonic order. Something of these signs and symbols, as well
2:08:33
Speaker 1: as the purpose of the Masonic system as a whole,
2:08:36
Speaker 1: has already been outlined in previous papers. In the present notes,
2:08:40
Speaker 1: it is proposed to extend the consideration of the subject
2:08:43
Speaker 1: in greater detail. The instruction lectures associated with each degree
2:08:48
Speaker 1: of the craft purport to expound the doctrine of the
2:08:50
Speaker 1: system and interpret the symbols and rituals. But these lectures
2:08:55
Speaker 1: themselves stand in similar need of interpretation. Indeed, they are
2:08:59
Speaker 1: contrived with very great cunning and concealment. Their compilers were
2:09:04
Speaker 1: confronted with the dual task of giving a faithful, if
2:09:07
Speaker 1: partial expression of esoteric doctrine, and at the same time
2:09:10
Speaker 1: of so masking it that its full sense would not
2:09:13
Speaker 1: be understood without some effort or enlightenment, and should convey
2:09:16
Speaker 1: little or nothing at all to those unworthy of or
2:09:19
Speaker 1: unripe for the gnosis or wisdom teaching. They discharged the
2:09:23
Speaker 1: task with signal success and in a way which provokes
2:09:26
Speaker 1: admiration from those who can appreciate it. For their profound
2:09:29
Speaker 1: knowledge of and insight into the science of self knowledge
2:09:33
Speaker 1: and regeneration. They were obviously initiates of an advanced type,
2:09:38
Speaker 1: while versed in the secret tradition and philosophy of the
2:09:40
Speaker 1: mystery systems of the past, and acutely perceptive of the
2:09:43
Speaker 1: deeper and mystical sense of the Holy Scriptures to which
2:09:46
Speaker 1: they constantly make luminous reference. To deal with these explanatory
2:09:51
Speaker 1: lectures in complete detail would involve a very long task.
2:09:55
Speaker 1: We will, however, proceed to speak of some of the
2:09:58
Speaker 1: more prominent matters with which they deal, and so elaborate
2:10:01
Speaker 1: the subject matter of our previous papers. Attention must first
2:10:06
Speaker 1: be called to the term geometry, the art upon which
2:10:09
Speaker 1: the entire system is stated to be founded. To the
2:10:13
Speaker 1: ordinary man, geometry means nothing more than the branch of
2:10:16
Speaker 1: mathematics associated with the problems of euclid, a subject obviously
2:10:20
Speaker 1: having no relation to Masonic ceremonial and ideals. Another explanation
2:10:25
Speaker 1: of the term must therefore be looked for now. Geometry
2:10:29
Speaker 1: was one of the seven noble arts and sciences of
2:10:32
Speaker 1: ancient philosophy. It means literally the science of earth measurement.
2:10:38
Speaker 1: But the birth of the ancients did not mean, as
2:10:41
Speaker 1: it does to us, this physical planet. It meant the
2:10:44
Speaker 1: primordial substance or undifferentiated soul, stuff out of which we
2:10:48
Speaker 1: human beings have been created, the mother Earth from which
2:10:51
Speaker 1: we have all sprung, and to which we must all
2:10:53
Speaker 1: undoubtedly return. Man was made. The scriptures teach out of
2:10:58
Speaker 1: the dust of the ground. And it is that ground,
2:11:00
Speaker 1: that earth, or fundamental substance of his being, which requires
2:11:04
Speaker 1: to be measured in the sense of investigating, in understanding
2:11:07
Speaker 1: its nature and properties. No competent builder erects a structure
2:11:11
Speaker 1: without first satisfying himself about the nature of the materials
2:11:15
Speaker 1: with which he proposes to build, And in the speculative
2:11:18
Speaker 1: or spiritual and royal art of masonry, no mason can
2:11:21
Speaker 1: properly build the temple of his own soul without first
2:11:24
Speaker 1: understanding the nature of the raw material he has to
2:11:27
Speaker 1: work upon. Geometry, therefore, is synonymous with self knowledge, the
2:11:32
Speaker 1: understanding of the basic substance of our being, its properties,
2:11:36
Speaker 1: and potentialities. Over the ancient temples of Initiation was inscribed
2:11:40
Speaker 1: the sentence know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe
2:11:44
Speaker 1: in God, a phrase which implies in the first place,
2:11:46
Speaker 1: that the uninitiated man is without knowledge of himself, and
2:11:50
Speaker 1: in the second place, that when he attains that knowledge,
2:11:52
Speaker 1: he will realize himself to be no longer the separate,
2:11:54
Speaker 1: distinctified individual he now supposes himself to be, but to
2:11:58
Speaker 1: be a microcosm or sol memory of all that is,
2:12:01
Speaker 1: and to be identified with the being of God. Masonry
2:12:05
Speaker 1: is the science of the attainment of that supreme knowledge,
2:12:07
Speaker 1: and is therefore rightly said to be founded on the
2:12:10
Speaker 1: principles of geometry as thus defined. But do not let
2:12:14
Speaker 1: it be supposed that the physical matter of which our
2:12:17
Speaker 1: mortal bodies are composed is the perth referred to, that is,
2:12:21
Speaker 1: but corruptible and permanent stuff, which merely forms a temporary
2:12:25
Speaker 1: encasement of the imperishable true Earth or substance of our
2:12:28
Speaker 1: souls and enables them to enter into sense relations with
2:12:32
Speaker 1: the physical world. The distinction must be clearly grasped and
2:12:36
Speaker 1: held in mind, for masonry has to deal not so
2:12:39
Speaker 1: much with the transient outward body as with the eternal
2:12:41
Speaker 1: inward being of man. Although the outward body is temporarily
2:12:45
Speaker 1: involved with the latter. It is the immortal soul of
2:12:49
Speaker 1: man which is the ruined temple and needs to be
2:12:51
Speaker 1: rebuilt upon the principles of spiritual science. The mortal body
2:12:56
Speaker 1: of it, with its unruly wills and affections, stands in
2:12:59
Speaker 1: the way of that atime achievement. It is the rubble
2:13:02
Speaker 1: which needs to be cleared before the new foundations can
2:13:05
Speaker 1: be set and the new structure reared. Yet even rubble
2:13:08
Speaker 1: can be made to serve useful purposes and be re
2:13:11
Speaker 1: arranged and worked into the new erection. And accordingly, man's
2:13:14
Speaker 1: outer temporal nature can be disciplined and utilized in the
2:13:17
Speaker 1: reconstruction of himself. But in order to effect this reconstruction,
2:13:21
Speaker 1: he must first have a full understanding of the material
2:13:24
Speaker 1: he has to work with and to work upon. For
2:13:27
Speaker 1: this purpose, he must be made acquainted with what is
2:13:30
Speaker 1: called the form of the lodge. The form of the
2:13:33
Speaker 1: lodge this is officially described as an oblong square in
2:13:38
Speaker 1: length between east and west, in breadth between north and south,
2:13:42
Speaker 1: in depth from the surface of the earth to its center,
2:13:45
Speaker 1: and even as high as the heavens. This is interpretable
2:13:49
Speaker 1: as alluding to the human individual. Man himself is a lodge,
2:13:54
Speaker 1: And just as the Masonic lodge is an assemblage of
2:13:57
Speaker 1: brethren and fellows met to expatiate upon the mysteries of
2:14:00
Speaker 1: the craft, so individual man is a composite being made
2:14:04
Speaker 1: up of various properties and faculties assembled together in him
2:14:07
Speaker 1: with a view to their harmonious interaction and working out
2:14:10
Speaker 1: the purpose of life. It must always be remembered that
2:14:14
Speaker 1: everything in masonry is figurative, of man and his human
2:14:17
Speaker 1: constitution and spiritual evolution. Accordingly, the Masonic lodge is sacramental
2:14:22
Speaker 1: of the individual mason, as he is when he seeks
2:14:25
Speaker 1: admission to a lodge. A man's first entry into a
2:14:29
Speaker 1: lodge is symbolical of his first entry upon the science
2:14:32
Speaker 1: of knowing himself. His organism is symbolized by a four
2:14:36
Speaker 1: square or four sighted building. This is in accordance with
2:14:40
Speaker 1: the very ancient philosophical doctrine that, for is the arithmetical
2:14:44
Speaker 1: symbol of everything which has manifested or physical form. Spirit,
2:14:48
Speaker 1: which is unmanifest and not physical, is expressed by the
2:14:52
Speaker 1: number three and the triangle, but spirit which has so
2:14:56
Speaker 1: far projected itself as to become objective, and where a
2:14:58
Speaker 1: material form or body is denoted by the number four
2:15:02
Speaker 1: and the quadrangle or square. Hence, the Hebrew name of Deity,
2:15:06
Speaker 1: as known and worshiped in this outer world was the
2:15:09
Speaker 1: great unspeakable name of four letters or tetragrammatin, whilst the
2:15:13
Speaker 1: cardinal points of space are also four, and every manifested
2:15:16
Speaker 1: thing is a compound of the four basic metaphysical elements
2:15:20
Speaker 1: called by the ancient's fire, water, air, and earth. The
2:15:24
Speaker 1: four sidedness of the lodge therefore is also a reminder
2:15:28
Speaker 1: that the human organism is compounded of those four elements
2:15:31
Speaker 1: in balanced proportions. Water represents the psychic nature, air, the mentality, fire,
2:15:38
Speaker 1: the will, and nervous force, whilst Earth is the condensation
2:15:42
Speaker 1: in which the other three becomes stabilized and encased. But
2:15:46
Speaker 1: it is an oblongated or duplicated square because man's organism
2:15:51
Speaker 1: does not consist of his physical body alone. The physical
2:15:54
Speaker 1: body has its double or ethereal counterpart in the astral body,
2:15:59
Speaker 1: which is an extension of the physical nature, in the
2:16:01
Speaker 1: compound of the same four elements in an impalpable and
2:16:04
Speaker 1: more tenuous form. The oblong spatial form of the lodge
2:16:08
Speaker 1: must therefore be considered as referable to the physical and
2:16:11
Speaker 1: ethereal nature of man in the conjunction in which they
2:16:14
Speaker 1: in fact consist in each of us. The four sides
2:16:18
Speaker 1: of the lodge have a further significance. The east of
2:16:21
Speaker 1: the lodge represents man's spirituality, his highest and most spiritual
2:16:25
Speaker 1: mode of consciousness, which in most men is very little developed,
2:16:29
Speaker 1: if at all, but is still latent and slumbering, and
2:16:32
Speaker 1: becomes active only in moments of stress or deep emotion.
2:16:36
Speaker 1: The West, or polar opposite of the East, represents his
2:16:40
Speaker 1: normal rational understanding. The consciousness he employs in temporal every
2:16:44
Speaker 1: day affairs his material mindedness, or as we might say,
2:16:48
Speaker 1: his common sense. Midway between these East and West extremes
2:16:52
Speaker 1: is the South, the half way house and meeting place
2:16:55
Speaker 1: of the spiritual intuition and the rational understanding. The point
2:16:59
Speaker 1: denoting apt distract intellectuality, and our intellectual power develops to
2:17:03
Speaker 1: its highest just as the sun attains its meridian splendor
2:17:06
Speaker 1: in the south. The antipodes of this is the North,
2:17:10
Speaker 1: the sphere of benightedness and ignorance referable to merely sense.
2:17:13
Speaker 1: Reactions and impressions received by that lowest and least reliable
2:17:17
Speaker 1: mode of perception are physical sense nature. Thus, the four
2:17:21
Speaker 1: sides of the lodge point to four different yet progressive
2:17:25
Speaker 1: modes of consciousness available to us sense impression North, reason, West,
2:17:31
Speaker 1: intellectual ideation South, and spiritual intuition East, making up our
2:17:36
Speaker 1: four possible ways of knowledge. Of these, the ordinary man
2:17:41
Speaker 1: employs only the first two or perhaps three, in accordance
2:17:44
Speaker 1: with his development and education, and his outlook on life
2:17:48
Speaker 1: and knowledge of truth are correspondingly restricted and imperfect. Full
2:17:52
Speaker 1: and perfect knowledge is possible only when the deep seeing
2:17:55
Speaker 1: vision and consciousness of man's spiritual principle have been awakened
2:17:59
Speaker 1: and superacs added to his other cognitive faculties. This is
2:18:03
Speaker 1: possible only to the true Master, who has all four
2:18:06
Speaker 1: methods of knowledge at his disposal, in perfect balance and adjusted,
2:18:09
Speaker 1: like the four sides of the lodge, and hence the
2:18:12
Speaker 1: place of the Master and past masters being always in
2:18:15
Speaker 1: the east. The depth of the lodge from the surface
2:18:19
Speaker 1: of the earth to its center refers to the distance
2:18:22
Speaker 1: or difference of degree between the superficial consciousness of our
2:18:25
Speaker 1: earthly mentality and the supreme divine degree of consciousness resident
2:18:29
Speaker 1: at man's spiritual center when he has become able to
2:18:31
Speaker 1: open his lodge upon that center and to function in
2:18:34
Speaker 1: and with it. The height of the lodge, even as
2:18:38
Speaker 1: high as the heavens, implies that the range of consciousness
2:18:41
Speaker 1: possible to us when we have developed our potentialities to
2:18:44
Speaker 1: the full is infinite. Man who has sprung from the
2:18:48
Speaker 1: earth and developed through the lower kingdoms of nature to
2:18:51
Speaker 1: his present rational state, has yet to complete his evolution
2:18:54
Speaker 1: by becoming a godlike being in unifying his consciousness with
2:18:57
Speaker 1: the omniscient to promote, which is an always has been
2:19:00
Speaker 1: the sole aim and purpose of all initiation to scale
2:19:04
Speaker 1: this height. To attain this expansion of consciousness is achieved
2:19:08
Speaker 1: by the use of a ladder of many rounds or staves,
2:19:11
Speaker 1: but of three principal ones, faith, hope, and charity, of
2:19:15
Speaker 1: which the greatest and most effectual is the last. That
2:19:19
Speaker 1: is to say, there are innumerable ways of developing one's
2:19:22
Speaker 1: consciousness to higher degrees, and in fact, every commonplace, incident
2:19:26
Speaker 1: of daily experience, may contribute to that end, if it
2:19:29
Speaker 1: be rightly interpreted, and its purpose in the general pattern
2:19:32
Speaker 1: of our life scheme be discerned. Yet even these should
2:19:35
Speaker 1: be subordinate to the three chief qualifications, namely faith in
2:19:39
Speaker 1: the possibility of attaining the end in view, hope or
2:19:42
Speaker 1: a persistent, fervent desire for its fulfillment, and finally in
2:19:47
Speaker 1: unbounded love, which seeking God in all men and all things,
2:19:50
Speaker 1: despite their outward appearances and thinking no evil, gradually identifies
2:19:55
Speaker 1: the mind and nature of the aspirant with that ultimate
2:19:57
Speaker 1: good upon which his thought, desire, and gaze should be
2:20:00
Speaker 1: persistently directed. It is important to note here that this
2:20:04
Speaker 1: enlargement of consciousness is in no way represented as being
2:20:08
Speaker 1: dependent upon intellectual attainments, learning or book knowledge. These may be,
2:20:13
Speaker 1: and indeed are, lesser staves of the latter of attainment,
2:20:17
Speaker 1: but they are not numbered among the principal ones. Compare
2:20:20
Speaker 1: Saint Paul's words, though I have all knowledge and have
2:20:23
Speaker 1: not love, I am nothing, and those of a medieval mystic.
2:20:27
Speaker 1: By love he may be gotten and holden, but by
2:20:29
Speaker 1: wit and understanding never. The lodge is supported by three
2:20:34
Speaker 1: grand pillars, wisdom, strength, and beauty. Again, the references are
2:20:39
Speaker 1: not to the external meeting place, but to a triplicity
2:20:42
Speaker 1: of properties resident in the individual soul, which will become
2:20:45
Speaker 1: increasingly manifest in the aspirant as he progresses and adapts
2:20:49
Speaker 1: himself to the Masonic discipline. As is written of the
2:20:52
Speaker 1: youthful Christian master, that he increased in wisdom and stature,
2:20:56
Speaker 1: and in favor with God and man, so will it
2:20:58
Speaker 1: also become true of the need mason who aspires to mastership.
2:21:03
Speaker 1: He will become conscious of an increase of perceptive faculty.
2:21:06
Speaker 1: In understanding. He will become aware of having tapped a
2:21:09
Speaker 1: previously unsuspected source of power, giving him enhanced mental strength
2:21:13
Speaker 1: and self confidence there will become observable in him, developing
2:21:16
Speaker 1: graces of character, speech, and conduct that were previously foreign
2:21:20
Speaker 1: to him. The floor or groundwork of the lodge, a
2:21:24
Speaker 1: checkerwork of black and white squares, denotes the dual quality
2:21:27
Speaker 1: of everything connected with terrestrial life and the physical groundwork
2:21:31
Speaker 1: of human nature, the mortal body and its appetites and affections.
2:21:35
Speaker 1: The web of our life is a mingled yarn good
2:21:38
Speaker 1: and ill together, wrote Shakespeare. Everything material is characterized by
2:21:43
Speaker 1: inextricably interblended good and evil, light and shade, joy and sorrow,
2:21:48
Speaker 1: positive and negative. What is good for me may be
2:21:51
Speaker 1: evil for you. Pleasure is generated from pain and ultimately
2:21:55
Speaker 1: degenerates into pain again. What it is right to do
2:21:58
Speaker 1: at one moment may be wrong the next. I am
2:22:00
Speaker 1: intellectually exalted to day, and tomorrow correspondingly depressed and benighted.
2:22:05
Speaker 1: The dualism of these opposites governs us in everything. An
2:22:09
Speaker 1: experience of it is prescribed for us until such time as,
2:22:12
Speaker 1: having learned and outgrown its lesson, we are ready for
2:22:15
Speaker 1: advancement to a condition where we outgrow the sense of
2:22:18
Speaker 1: this checker work existence, and those opposites cease to be
2:22:21
Speaker 1: perceived as opposites, but are realized as a unity or synthesis.
2:22:26
Speaker 1: To find that unity or synthesis is to know the
2:22:28
Speaker 1: piece which passes understanding, i e. Which surpasses our present experience,
2:22:33
Speaker 1: because in it the darkness and the light are both alike,
2:22:36
Speaker 1: and our present concepts of good and evil, joy and
2:22:39
Speaker 1: pain are transcended and found sublimated in a condition combining both.
2:22:44
Speaker 1: And this lofty condition is represented by the indented or
2:22:47
Speaker 1: tessellated border skirting the black and white checker work, even
2:22:50
Speaker 1: as the divine presence and providence surrounds and embraces our
2:22:54
Speaker 1: temporal organisms in which those opposites are inherent. Why is
2:22:58
Speaker 1: the checker floor work given such prominence in the large furniture.
2:23:02
Speaker 1: The answer is to be found in a statement in
2:23:05
Speaker 1: a third degree ritual, the square pavement is for the
2:23:08
Speaker 1: high priest to walk upon. Now, it is not merely
2:23:11
Speaker 1: the Jewish high priest of centuries ago that is here
2:23:14
Speaker 1: referred to, but the individual member of the craft. For
2:23:18
Speaker 1: every mason is intended to be the high priest of
2:23:20
Speaker 1: his own personal temple, and to make of it a
2:23:22
Speaker 1: place where he and deity may meet. By the mere
2:23:26
Speaker 1: fact of being. In this dualistic world, every living being,
2:23:29
Speaker 1: whether a mason or not, walks upon the square pavement
2:23:32
Speaker 1: of mingled good and evil in every action of his life,
2:23:35
Speaker 1: so that the floor cloth is the symbol of an
2:23:37
Speaker 1: elementary philosophical truth common to us all. But for us
2:23:42
Speaker 1: the words walk upon imply much more than that. They
2:23:46
Speaker 1: mean that he who aspires to be master of his
2:23:49
Speaker 1: fate and captain of his soul must walk upon these
2:23:51
Speaker 1: opposites in the sense of transcending and dominating them, of
2:23:54
Speaker 1: trampling upon his lower sensual nature and keeping it beneath
2:23:57
Speaker 1: his feet in subjection and control. He must become able
2:24:01
Speaker 1: to rise above the motley of good and evil, to
2:24:04
Speaker 1: be superior and indifferent to the ups and downs of fortune,
2:24:07
Speaker 1: the attractions and fears governing ordinary men in swaying their
2:24:11
Speaker 1: thoughts and actions this way, or that his object is
2:24:15
Speaker 1: the development of his innate spiritual potencies, and it is
2:24:18
Speaker 1: impossible that these should develop so long as he is
2:24:20
Speaker 1: overruled by his material tendencies and the fluctuating emotions of
2:24:24
Speaker 1: pleasure and pain that they give birth to. It is
2:24:27
Speaker 1: by rising superior to these and attaining serenity and mental
2:24:31
Speaker 1: equilibrium under any circumstances in which, for the moment he
2:24:34
Speaker 1: may be placed, that a Mason truly walks upon the
2:24:37
Speaker 1: checkered groundwork of existence and the conflicting tendencies of his
2:24:41
Speaker 1: more material nature. The covering of the lodge is shown
2:24:44
Speaker 1: in sharp contrast to its black and white flooring, and
2:24:47
Speaker 1: is described as a celestial canopy of divers colors, even
2:24:51
Speaker 1: the heavens. If the flooring symbolizes man's earthy, sensuous nature,
2:24:56
Speaker 1: the sealing typifies his ethereal nature, his heavens, and the
2:25:00
Speaker 1: properties resident therein. The one is the reverse and the
2:25:04
Speaker 1: opposite pole of the other. His material body is visible
2:25:08
Speaker 1: and densely composed. His ethereal surround or aura, is tenuous
2:25:14
Speaker 1: and invisible save to clairvoyant vision, and like the fragrance
2:25:17
Speaker 1: thrown off by a flower, its existence will be doubted
2:25:21
Speaker 1: by those unprepared to accept what is not physically demonstrable.
2:25:24
Speaker 1: But the Masonic student, who will be called upon to
2:25:27
Speaker 1: accept many such truths provisionally until he knows them as certainties,
2:25:31
Speaker 1: should reflect one that he has entered the craft with
2:25:34
Speaker 1: the professed object of receiving light upon the nature of
2:25:37
Speaker 1: his own being. Two that the order engages to assist
2:25:40
Speaker 1: him to that light in regard to matters of which
2:25:42
Speaker 1: he is admittedly ignorant, and that its teachings and symbols
2:25:47
Speaker 1: were devised by wise and competent instructors in such matters,
2:25:50
Speaker 1: And three that a humble, docile, and receptive mental attitude
2:25:55
Speaker 1: towards those symbols and their meanings will better conduce to
2:25:57
Speaker 1: his advancement than a critical or hostile one. The fact
2:26:01
Speaker 1: that man throws off or radiates from himself an ethereal
2:26:05
Speaker 1: surround or covering is testified to buy the aureoles and
2:26:08
Speaker 1: haloes shown in works of art about the persons of
2:26:11
Speaker 1: saintly characters. The unsaintly are not so distinctified, not because
2:26:16
Speaker 1: they are not so surrounded, but because, in their case
2:26:19
Speaker 1: the bora exists as but an irregularly shaped and colored cloud,
2:26:22
Speaker 1: reflecting their normal, undisciplined mentality and passional nature. As the
2:26:27
Speaker 1: rain clouds reflect the sunlight in different tints, the aura
2:26:31
Speaker 1: of the man, who has his mentality clean, in his
2:26:34
Speaker 1: passions and emotions well in hand, becomes a correspondingly orderly
2:26:37
Speaker 1: and shapely encasement of clearly defined form and iridescence, regularly
2:26:41
Speaker 1: striated like the colors of the spectrum or the rainbow. Biblically,
2:26:46
Speaker 1: this aura is described as a coat of many colors,
2:26:49
Speaker 1: and as having characterized Joseph, the greatest of the sons
2:26:53
Speaker 1: of Jacob, in contrast with that patriarchs less morally and
2:26:56
Speaker 1: spiritually developed sons, who were not distinctified by any such coat.
2:27:01
Speaker 1: In masonry, the equivalent of the oriole is the symbolic
2:27:04
Speaker 1: clothing worn by provincial and Grand Lodge officers. This is
2:27:09
Speaker 1: of deep blue, heavily fringed with gold, in correspondence with
2:27:13
Speaker 1: the deep blue center and luminous circumference of flame. His
2:27:17
Speaker 1: ministers are flames of fire. Provincial and Grand Lodge officers
2:27:21
Speaker 1: are drawn from those who are past masters in the craft,
2:27:24
Speaker 1: that is, from those who theoretically have attained sanctity, regeneration,
2:27:29
Speaker 1: and mastership of themselves, and have become joined to the
2:27:32
Speaker 1: Grand lodge above, where they shine as the stars. It
2:27:35
Speaker 1: follows from all this that the mason who seriously yields
2:27:38
Speaker 1: himself to the discipline of the order is not merely
2:27:41
Speaker 1: improving his character and chastening his thoughts and desires. He
2:27:45
Speaker 1: is at the same time unconsciously building up an inner
2:27:48
Speaker 1: ethereal body, which will form his clothing or covering when
2:27:51
Speaker 1: his transitory outer body shall have passed away. There are
2:27:55
Speaker 1: celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial land. As we have borne
2:27:59
Speaker 1: the image of the earthly, we also shall bear the
2:28:01
Speaker 1: image of the heavenly, and the celestial body must be
2:28:05
Speaker 1: built up out of the sublimated properties of the terrestrial one.
2:28:09
Speaker 1: This is one of the secrets and mysteries of the
2:28:11
Speaker 1: process of regeneration and self transmutation to promote which the
2:28:15
Speaker 1: craft was designed. This is the true temple building that
2:28:19
Speaker 1: masonry is concerned with. The apron being the Masonic symbol
2:28:23
Speaker 1: of the bodily organism changes an increasing elaborateness in it
2:28:27
Speaker 1: as the mason advances to higher stages in the craft,
2:28:29
Speaker 1: symbolize in theory the actual development that is gradually taking
2:28:33
Speaker 1: place in his nature. Moreover, as in the outer heavens
2:28:37
Speaker 1: of nature, the sun, moon, and stars exist in function,
2:28:41
Speaker 1: so in the personal heavens of man there operate metaphysical
2:28:44
Speaker 1: forces inherent in himself and described by the same terms.
2:28:48
Speaker 1: In the makeup of each of us exists a psychic
2:28:50
Speaker 1: magnetic field of various forces determining our individual temperaments and
2:28:54
Speaker 1: tendencies and influencing our future. To those forces have also
2:28:59
Speaker 1: been given the name of Sun, Moon, and planets, and
2:29:02
Speaker 1: the science of their interaction and outworking was the ancient
2:29:05
Speaker 1: science of astronomy, or as it is now more often
2:29:08
Speaker 1: called astrology, which is one of the liberal arts and
2:29:11
Speaker 1: sciences recommended to the study of every mason, in the
2:29:14
Speaker 1: pursuit of which belongs in particular to the fellow craft stage.
2:29:18
Speaker 1: The positions of the officers of the lodge. The seven officers,
2:29:23
Speaker 1: three principle and three subordinate ones, with an additional miner
2:29:26
Speaker 1: one serving as a connecting link with the outside world,
2:29:29
Speaker 1: represents seven aspects or faculties of consciousness psychologically interactive and
2:29:34
Speaker 1: coordinated into a unity so as to constitute a just
2:29:37
Speaker 1: and perfect lodge. As a man, any one of whose
2:29:41
Speaker 1: faculties is disordered or uncoordinated is accounted insane. So a
2:29:45
Speaker 1: lodge would be imperfect and incapacitated for effective work if
2:29:49
Speaker 1: its functional mechanism were incomplete. Seven is universally the number
2:29:54
Speaker 1: of completeness. The time periods of creation were seven. The
2:29:58
Speaker 1: spectrum of light consists of saven colours. The musical scale
2:30:02
Speaker 1: of seven notes our division of time is into weeks
2:30:05
Speaker 1: of seven days. Our physiological changes run in cycles of
2:30:08
Speaker 1: seven years. Man himself is a sevenfold organism in correspondence
2:30:13
Speaker 1: with all these, and the normal years of his life
2:30:16
Speaker 1: are seven multiplied by ten. That master or chief officer
2:30:21
Speaker 1: in man is the spiritual principle in him, which is
2:30:23
Speaker 1: the apex and root of his being, and to which
2:30:26
Speaker 1: all his subsidiary faculties should be subordinate and responsive. When
2:30:30
Speaker 1: the master's gavel knox, those of the wardens at once
2:30:33
Speaker 1: repeat the knox. When the divine principle in man speaks
2:30:37
Speaker 1: in the depth of his being, the remaining portions of
2:30:40
Speaker 1: his nature should reverberate in sympathy. Without the presence of
2:30:44
Speaker 1: this divine principle in him, man would be less than human.
2:30:48
Speaker 1: Because of its presence in him, he can become more
2:30:50
Speaker 1: than human. By cultivating his consciousness of it. He may
2:30:54
Speaker 1: become unified with it in proportion as he denies and
2:30:57
Speaker 1: renounces everything in himself that is less than divine. It
2:31:01
Speaker 1: is the inextinguishable light of a master Mason, which, being
2:31:04
Speaker 1: immortal and eternal, continues to shine when everything temporal and
2:31:08
Speaker 1: mortal has disappeared. The senior warden, whilst the Master's chief
2:31:12
Speaker 1: executive officer is his antithesis and opposite poll. He personifies
2:31:18
Speaker 1: the soul, the psychic or animistic principle in man, which,
2:31:22
Speaker 1: if unassociated with and unallumined by the greater light of
2:31:25
Speaker 1: the Spirit or master Principle, has no inherent light of
2:31:28
Speaker 1: its own at all. At best, he in the west
2:31:31
Speaker 1: can but reflect and transmit that greater light from the east,
2:31:34
Speaker 1: as the moon receives and reflects sunlight. Wherefore, in masonry
2:31:39
Speaker 1: his light is spoken of as the moon. In nature,
2:31:42
Speaker 1: when the moon is not shown upon by the Sun,
2:31:45
Speaker 1: it is invisible and virtually nonexistent for us. When it is,
2:31:48
Speaker 1: it is one of the most resplendent of phenomena. Similarly,
2:31:52
Speaker 1: human intelligence is valuable or negligible according as it is
2:31:56
Speaker 1: enlightened by the master light of the divine Principle or
2:31:59
Speaker 1: merely darkly functioning from its own unallumined energies. In the
2:32:03
Speaker 1: former case, it is the chief executive faculty or transmitting
2:32:06
Speaker 1: medium of the supreme wisdom. In the latter, it can
2:32:09
Speaker 1: display nothing better than brute reason. Midway between the master
2:32:13
Speaker 1: light from the east and the moon in the west
2:32:16
Speaker 1: is placed the junior warden in the south, symbolizing the
2:32:19
Speaker 1: third greater light, the sun, and masonically that sun stands
2:32:24
Speaker 1: for the illuminated human intelligence and understanding which results from
2:32:28
Speaker 1: the material brain mind being thoroughly permeated and enlightened by
2:32:32
Speaker 1: the spiritual principle. It denotes these two in a state
2:32:35
Speaker 1: of balance and harmonious interaction, the junior warden personifying the
2:32:39
Speaker 1: balance point or meeting place of man's natural reason in
2:32:42
Speaker 1: his spiritual intuition. Accordingly, it is he who, as representing
2:32:47
Speaker 1: this enlightened mental condition, asserts, in the second degree, which
2:32:50
Speaker 1: is the degree of personal development where that condition is
2:32:53
Speaker 1: theoretically achieved, that he has been enabled in that degree
2:32:56
Speaker 1: to discover a sacred symbol placed in the center of
2:32:59
Speaker 1: the building, and alluding to the GGO to you. What
2:33:02
Speaker 1: is meant is, of course, that the man who has,
2:33:05
Speaker 1: in reality and not merely ceremonially advance to the second
2:33:09
Speaker 1: degree of self development, has now discerned that God is
2:33:12
Speaker 1: not outside him but within him and overshadowing his own
2:33:15
Speaker 1: building or organism, a discovery which he is thereupon urged
2:33:19
Speaker 1: to follow up with fervency and zeal, so that he
2:33:22
Speaker 1: may more and more closely unify himself with this divine principle. This, however,
2:33:27
Speaker 1: is a process requiring time, effort, and self struggle. The
2:33:32
Speaker 1: unification is not achieved suddenly there are found to be obstacles,
2:33:37
Speaker 1: enemies in the way, obstructing it, due to the aspirin's
2:33:40
Speaker 1: own imperfections and limitations. These must first be gradually overcome,
2:33:45
Speaker 1: and it is the eradication of these which is alluded
2:33:48
Speaker 1: to in the sign of the Degree, indicating that he
2:33:50
Speaker 1: desires to cleanse his heart and cast away all evil
2:33:53
Speaker 1: from it, to purify himself for closer alliance with that
2:33:56
Speaker 1: pure light. It is only by this sunlight, this newly
2:34:00
Speaker 1: found illumination, that he has become able to see into
2:34:03
Speaker 1: the depths of his own nature. And this is the Sun, which,
2:34:07
Speaker 1: like Joshua he praise, may stand still and its light
2:34:10
Speaker 1: be retained by him until he has achieved the conquest
2:34:13
Speaker 1: of all these enemies. The problem of the much discredited
2:34:17
Speaker 1: biblical miracle of the sun standing still in the heavens
2:34:20
Speaker 1: disappears when its true meaning is perceived in the light
2:34:22
Speaker 1: of the interpretation given by the compilers of the Masonic ritual,
2:34:26
Speaker 1: who well knew that it was not the solar orb
2:34:28
Speaker 1: that was miraculously stayed in its course and violation of
2:34:31
Speaker 1: natural law, but that that the sun in question denotes
2:34:35
Speaker 1: an enlightened perceptive state experienced by every one who in
2:34:38
Speaker 1: this valley of Ajalon undertakes the task of self conquest
2:34:43
Speaker 1: and fighting the battles of the Lord against his own
2:34:45
Speaker 1: lower propensities. We have now spoken of the senior and
2:34:49
Speaker 1: junior Wardens in their respective psychological significances, and as being
2:34:54
Speaker 1: described as the Moon and Sun. In this connection. It
2:34:58
Speaker 1: is well to point out here that the light of
2:35:00
Speaker 1: both Moon and Sun become extinguished in the darkness of
2:35:03
Speaker 1: the third degree in the great work of self transformation.
2:35:07
Speaker 1: They are lights and helps up to a point. When
2:35:10
Speaker 1: that point is reached, they are of no further avail.
2:35:12
Speaker 1: The grip of each of them proves a slip, and
2:35:14
Speaker 1: the master light or divine principle alone takes up and
2:35:18
Speaker 1: completes the regenerative change. The Sun shall be no more
2:35:21
Speaker 1: thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the Moon
2:35:24
Speaker 1: give light unto thee. But the Lord shall be unto
2:35:26
Speaker 1: thee an everlasting light. And Thy God, thy glory, and
2:35:29
Speaker 1: the days of Thy morning shall be ended. Is Lex
2:35:34
Speaker 1: nineteen to twenty. The three lesser officers and Tyler, who
2:35:39
Speaker 1: with the three principal ones complete the executive Septenary, represent
2:35:43
Speaker 1: the three greater officer's energies transmitted into the lower faculties
2:35:47
Speaker 1: of man's organism. The senior Deacon, as the master's adjutant
2:35:51
Speaker 1: and emissary, forms the link between east and west. The
2:35:56
Speaker 1: junior Deacon, as the senior Warden's adjutant and emissary, forms
2:36:00
Speaker 1: the link between west and south, whilst the inner Guard
2:36:03
Speaker 1: acts under the immediate control of the junior Warden and
2:36:06
Speaker 1: in mutually reflex action with the outer guard or contact
2:36:09
Speaker 1: point with the outer world of sense impressions. The wholes
2:36:13
Speaker 1: seven thus typify the mechanism of human consciousness. They represent
2:36:17
Speaker 1: a series of discreete but coordinated parts, connecting man's outer
2:36:20
Speaker 1: nature with his inmost divine principle, and providing the necessary
2:36:24
Speaker 1: channels for reciprocal action between the spiritual and material poles
2:36:27
Speaker 1: of his organism. In other words, and to use an
2:36:31
Speaker 1: alternative symbol of the same fact, man is potentially a
2:36:34
Speaker 1: seven branched golden candlestick. Potentially so because as yet he
2:36:39
Speaker 1: has not transmuted the base metals of his nature into
2:36:42
Speaker 1: gold or lit up the seven candles or parts of
2:36:45
Speaker 1: his organism with the Promethean fire of the divine principle. Meanwhile,
2:36:49
Speaker 1: that symbol of what is possible to him is offered
2:36:52
Speaker 1: for his reflection and contemplation, and he may profitably study
2:36:55
Speaker 1: the description of regenerated, perfected man given in Revelation one
2:36:59
Speaker 1: twelve to Tim. To summarize the seven officers, typify the
2:37:04
Speaker 1: following sevenfold parts of the human mechanism w M, Spirit, Numa,
2:37:10
Speaker 1: s W, Soul, psyche JW, mind nouse, intellect SD the
2:37:19
Speaker 1: link between spirit and soul JD the link between soul
2:37:25
Speaker 1: and mind IG the inner sense nature astral og the
2:37:32
Speaker 1: outer sense nature physical, the greater and lesser lights. The
2:37:37
Speaker 1: purpose of initiation may be defined as follows. It is
2:37:41
Speaker 1: to stimulate and awaken the candidate to direct cognition and
2:37:44
Speaker 1: irrefutable demonstration of facts and truths of his own being
2:37:47
Speaker 1: about which previously he has been either wholly ignorant or
2:37:50
Speaker 1: only notionally informed. It is to bring him into direct
2:37:53
Speaker 1: conscious contact with the realities underlying the surface images of things,
2:37:57
Speaker 1: so that instead of holding merely below chiefs or opinions
2:38:01
Speaker 1: about himself, the universe, in God, he is directly end
2:38:05
Speaker 1: convincingly confronted with truth itself. And finally, it is to
2:38:09
Speaker 1: move him to become the good and the truth revealed
2:38:11
Speaker 1: to him by identifying himself with it. This is of course,
2:38:15
Speaker 1: a gradual process, involving greater or less time and effort
2:38:18
Speaker 1: in proportion to the capacity and equipment of the candidate himself.
2:38:23
Speaker 1: The restoration to light of the candidate in the first
2:38:25
Speaker 1: degree is therefore indicative of an important crisis. It symbolizes
2:38:31
Speaker 1: the first enlargement of perception that, thanks to his own
2:38:34
Speaker 1: earnest aspirations and the good offices of the guides and
2:38:37
Speaker 1: instructors to whom he has yielded himself, initiation brings him.
2:38:42
Speaker 1: It reveals to him a threefold symbol referred to as
2:38:45
Speaker 1: the three great though emblematic lights in masonry, the Holy
2:38:48
Speaker 1: Bible square encompasses in a state of conjunction, the two
2:38:52
Speaker 1: latter resting on the first, named as their ground or base.
2:38:56
Speaker 1: As this triple symbol is, the first object is outward
2:38:59
Speaker 1: I gaze upon after enlightenment, so in correspondence, what they
2:39:03
Speaker 1: emblematize is the first truth. His inward eye is meant
2:39:06
Speaker 1: to recognize and contemplate upon He is also made aware
2:39:10
Speaker 1: of three emblematic lesser lights, described as alluding to the Sun, Moon,
2:39:14
Speaker 1: and Master of the Lodge, the psychological significance of which
2:39:18
Speaker 1: has already been explained in our interpretation of the officers
2:39:21
Speaker 1: of the Lodge. Now, the fact is that the candidate
2:39:25
Speaker 1: can only see the three greater lights by the help
2:39:27
Speaker 1: of the three lesser ones. In other words, the lesser
2:39:31
Speaker 1: triad is the instrument by which he beholds the greater one.
2:39:34
Speaker 1: It is his own perceptive faculty, subject looking out upon
2:39:37
Speaker 1: something larger object with which it is not yet identified,
2:39:41
Speaker 1: just as so small a thing as the eye can
2:39:43
Speaker 1: behold the expanse of the heavens, and the finite mind
2:39:46
Speaker 1: can contemplate infinitude. What is implied, then, is that the
2:39:51
Speaker 1: lesser lights of the candidate's normal, finite intelligence are employed
2:39:55
Speaker 1: to reveal to him the greater lights or fundamental essences
2:39:58
Speaker 1: of his as yet undeveloped being. A pigmy rudimentary consciousness
2:40:02
Speaker 1: is being made aware of its submerged source and roots,
2:40:05
Speaker 1: and placed in sharp contrast with the limitless possibilities available
2:40:09
Speaker 1: to it. When those hidden depths have been developed and
2:40:11
Speaker 1: brought into function, the candidate's problem and destiny is to
2:40:15
Speaker 1: lose himself, to find himself, to unify his lesser with
2:40:18
Speaker 1: his greater lights, so that he no longer functions merely
2:40:21
Speaker 1: with an elementary reflex consciousness, but an alliance with the
2:40:25
Speaker 1: all conscious with which he has become identified in the
2:40:28
Speaker 1: royal arch degree. He will discover that this identification of
2:40:31
Speaker 1: the lesser and greater lights has theoretically become achieved. The
2:40:35
Speaker 1: interlaced triangles of lights surrounding the central altar in that
2:40:39
Speaker 1: supreme degree imply the union of perceptive faculty with the
2:40:42
Speaker 1: object of their contemplation, the blending of the human and
2:40:45
Speaker 1: the divine consciousness. What then, do the three greater lights emblematize,
2:40:50
Speaker 1: and what does their intimate conjunction connote? One. The written
2:40:55
Speaker 1: word is the emblem and external expression of the unwritten
2:40:58
Speaker 1: eternal word, the logos or substantial wisdom of Deity, out
2:41:01
Speaker 1: of which every living soul has emanated, and which therefore
2:41:05
Speaker 1: is the ground or base of human life. In the
2:41:08
Speaker 1: beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
2:41:10
Speaker 1: and the Word was God without him, was not anything
2:41:13
Speaker 1: made that was made in him was life, and the
2:41:16
Speaker 1: life was the light of men, and the light shineth
2:41:18
Speaker 1: in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it. Not in an
2:41:22
Speaker 1: intelligently conducted lodge. The sacred volume should lie open at
2:41:26
Speaker 1: the first chapter of the Gospel by Saint John, the
2:41:28
Speaker 1: patron Saint of masonry, so that it may be these
2:41:31
Speaker 1: words that shall meet the candidate's eyes, when restored to light,
2:41:34
Speaker 1: and remind him that the basis of his being is
2:41:36
Speaker 1: the Divine Word, resident in shining within his own darkness
2:41:40
Speaker 1: and ignorance, which realize and comprehend not that fact he
2:41:44
Speaker 1: has lost all consciousness of that truth. And this dereliction
2:41:48
Speaker 1: is the lost Word of which every mason is theoretically
2:41:51
Speaker 1: in search, and which, with due instruction in his own
2:41:53
Speaker 1: industry he hopes to find, finding that he will find
2:41:57
Speaker 1: all things, for he will have found God with the
2:41:59
Speaker 1: aids himself. Let the candidate also reflect that it is
2:42:03
Speaker 1: the secret motions and promptings of this Word within him
2:42:06
Speaker 1: that have impelled him to enter the craft and to
2:42:08
Speaker 1: seek initiation into light. In the words of a great initiate,
2:42:13
Speaker 1: Thy seeking is the cause of thy finding, for the
2:42:15
Speaker 1: finding is but the final coming to self consciousness of
2:42:18
Speaker 1: that inward force which first impelled the quest for light. Hence,
2:42:22
Speaker 1: it is that no one can properly enter the craft
2:42:25
Speaker 1: or hope for real initiation if he joins the order
2:42:28
Speaker 1: from any less motive than that of finding God that
2:42:31
Speaker 1: hit treasure within himself. His first place of preparation must
2:42:35
Speaker 1: needs be in the heart, and his paramount desire and
2:42:38
Speaker 1: heart hunger must be for that light, which, when attained,
2:42:41
Speaker 1: is omniscience coming to consciousness in him. Otherwise all ceremonial
2:42:45
Speaker 1: initiation will be without avail, and he will fail even
2:42:48
Speaker 1: to understand the external symbols and allegories of it. Two.
2:42:53
Speaker 1: The square resting upon the sacred volume is the symbol
2:42:56
Speaker 1: of the human soul, as it was generated out of
2:42:58
Speaker 1: the divine word which underlies it. That soul was created square, perfect,
2:43:04
Speaker 1: and like everything which proceeded from the creator's hand, was
2:43:07
Speaker 1: originally pronounced very good, though invested with freedom of choice
2:43:11
Speaker 1: and capacity for error. The builder's square, however, used as
2:43:16
Speaker 1: a craft symbol, is really an approximation of a triangle
2:43:19
Speaker 1: with its apex downwards and base upwards, which is a
2:43:22
Speaker 1: very ancient symbol of the soul and psychic constitution of man,
2:43:25
Speaker 1: and is known as the water triangle. Three. The compasses
2:43:30
Speaker 1: interlaced with the square, are the symbol of the spirit
2:43:33
Speaker 1: of the soul, its functional energy or fire of itself.
2:43:37
Speaker 1: The soul would be a mere inert passivity, a negative
2:43:40
Speaker 1: quantity unbalanced by a positive opposite. Its active properties are
2:43:45
Speaker 1: the product of the union of itself with its underlying
2:43:47
Speaker 1: and inspiring divine basis, as modified by the good or
2:43:51
Speaker 1: evil tendencies of the soul itself. God breathed into man
2:43:55
Speaker 1: the breath of life, and man became no longer a
2:43:58
Speaker 1: soul which he was previous, but a living, energizing soul.
2:44:03
Speaker 1: This product or fiery energy of the soul is the
2:44:06
Speaker 1: spirit of man, a good or evil force accordingly as
2:44:10
Speaker 1: he shapes it, and is symbolized by what has always
2:44:13
Speaker 1: been known as the fire triangle with apex upward and
2:44:16
Speaker 1: base downward, which symbol is approximately reproduced in the compasses.
2:44:21
Speaker 1: To summarize the three greater lights, emblematized the inextricably interwoven
2:44:25
Speaker 1: triatic groundwork of man's being. I the divine word or
2:44:29
Speaker 1: substance as its foundation. Two, a passive soul emanated therefrom
2:44:34
Speaker 1: three an active spirit or energizing capacity generated in the
2:44:38
Speaker 1: soul as the result of the interaction of the former two.
2:44:42
Speaker 1: Man himself, therefore, viewed apart from the temporal body now
2:44:45
Speaker 1: clothing him, is a triatic unit rooted in and proceeding
2:44:48
Speaker 1: from the basic divine substance. Observe that in the first degree,
2:44:53
Speaker 1: the points of the compasses are hidden by the square.
2:44:56
Speaker 1: In the second degree, one point is disclosed. In the
2:45:00
Speaker 1: third both are exhibited. The implication is that as the
2:45:04
Speaker 1: candidate progresses, the inertia and negativity of the soul become
2:45:08
Speaker 1: increasingly transmuted and superseded by the positive energy and activity
2:45:12
Speaker 1: of the spirit. The fire triangle gradually assumes preponderance over
2:45:17
Speaker 1: the water triangle, signifying that the aspirink becomes a more
2:45:20
Speaker 1: vividly living and spiritually conscious being than he was at first.
2:45:25
Speaker 1: Opening and closing the lodge first or entered apprentice degree.
2:45:29
Speaker 1: If the lodge, with its appointments and officers, be a
2:45:32
Speaker 1: sacramental figure of oneself and of the mechanism of personal consciousness,
2:45:36
Speaker 1: Opening the lodge in the successive degrees implies ability to expand,
2:45:40
Speaker 1: open up, and intensify that consciousness in three distinct stages,
2:45:43
Speaker 1: surpassing the normal level applicable to ordinary mundane affairs, this
2:45:48
Speaker 1: fact passes unrecognized. In Masonic lodges. The openings and closings
2:45:54
Speaker 1: are regarded as but so much casual formality, devoid of
2:45:57
Speaker 1: interior purpose or meaning, whereas they are ceremonies of the
2:46:00
Speaker 1: highest instructiveness and writes with a distinctive purpose which should
2:46:04
Speaker 1: not be profaned by casual perfunctory performance or without understanding
2:46:08
Speaker 1: what they imply. As a flower opens its lodge when
2:46:12
Speaker 1: it unfolds its petals and displays its center to the sun,
2:46:15
Speaker 1: which vitalizes it, so the opening of a Masonic lodge
2:46:18
Speaker 1: is sacramental of opening out the human mind and heart
2:46:21
Speaker 1: to God. It is a dramatized form of the psychological
2:46:25
Speaker 1: processes involved in so doing. Three degrees, or stages of
2:46:30
Speaker 1: such opening are postulated. First, one appropriate to the apprentice
2:46:35
Speaker 1: stage of development, a simple sessum korda, or called to
2:46:39
Speaker 1: lift up your hearts above the everyday level of external things. Second,
2:46:44
Speaker 1: a more advanced opening adapted to those who are themselves
2:46:48
Speaker 1: more advanced in the science and capable of greater things
2:46:51
Speaker 1: than apprentices. This opening is proclaimed to be upon the
2:46:55
Speaker 1: square which the first degree opening is not, by which
2:46:59
Speaker 1: is implied that it is one specially involving the use
2:47:02
Speaker 1: of the psychic and higher intellectual nature denoted as previously
2:47:06
Speaker 1: explained by the square or water triangle. Third, a still
2:47:11
Speaker 1: more advanced opening declared to be upon the center for
2:47:14
Speaker 1: those of master Mason's rank, and pointing to an opening
2:47:17
Speaker 1: up of consciousness to the very center and depths of
2:47:20
Speaker 1: one's being. How far into what degree any of us
2:47:24
Speaker 1: is able to open his personal lodge determines our real
2:47:26
Speaker 1: position in masonry, and discloses whether we are in very
2:47:30
Speaker 1: fact masters craftsmen, or apprentices, or only titularly. Such progress
2:47:35
Speaker 1: in this, as in other things, comes only with intelligent
2:47:39
Speaker 1: practice and sustained sincere effort. But what is quite overlooked
2:47:43
Speaker 1: and desirable to emphasize is the power, as an initiatory force,
2:47:47
Speaker 1: of an assemblage of individuals, each sufficiently progressed and competent
2:47:51
Speaker 1: to open his lodge in the sense described. Such an
2:47:55
Speaker 1: assembly gathered in one place and acting with a common
2:47:58
Speaker 1: definite purpose, creates, as it were, a vortex in a
2:48:01
Speaker 1: mental and psychical atmosphere into which a newly initiated candidate
2:48:05
Speaker 1: is drawn. The tension created by their collective energy of
2:48:09
Speaker 1: thought and will progressively intensifying as the lodge is opened
2:48:12
Speaker 1: in each successive degree, and correspondingly relaxing as each degree
2:48:17
Speaker 1: is closed, acts and leaves a permanent effect upon the candidate,
2:48:20
Speaker 1: assuming always that he is equally in earnest and properly
2:48:24
Speaker 1: prepared in an interior sense, inducing a favorable mental and
2:48:28
Speaker 1: spiritual rapport between him and those with whom he seeks
2:48:31
Speaker 1: to be elevated into organic spiritual membership. And further it
2:48:36
Speaker 1: both stimulates his perceptivity and causes his mentality to become
2:48:40
Speaker 1: charged and permeated with the ideas and uplifting influences projected
2:48:44
Speaker 1: upon him by his initiators. The fact that a candidate
2:48:48
Speaker 1: is not admitted within the lodge portals without certain assurances, safeguards,
2:48:52
Speaker 1: and tests, and that even then he is menaced by
2:48:55
Speaker 1: the sword of the ig is an indication that peril
2:48:58
Speaker 1: to the mental and spiritual organism is recognized as attending
2:49:01
Speaker 1: the presumptuous engaging in the things with which initiation deals.
2:49:06
Speaker 1: As the flaming sword is described as keeping the way
2:49:08
Speaker 1: to the Tree of life from those as yet unfitted
2:49:11
Speaker 1: to approach it, so does the secret law of the
2:49:13
Speaker 1: spirit still avenge itself upon those who are unqualified to
2:49:16
Speaker 1: participate in the knowledge of its mysteries. Hence the commandment
2:49:21
Speaker 1: thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
2:49:23
Speaker 1: God in vain, that is, by invoking divine energy for
2:49:26
Speaker 1: unworthy or vain purposes. Here and upon the general subject
2:49:31
Speaker 1: of the signs, tokens and words employed and communicated in
2:49:35
Speaker 1: initiatory rites may usefully be quoted the following words by
2:49:38
Speaker 1: a well informed mason, who is, of course speaking of them,
2:49:41
Speaker 1: not as the merely perfunctory acts they are in ordinary lodges,
2:49:45
Speaker 1: but as they are when intelligently employed by those fully
2:49:48
Speaker 1: instructed in spiritual science and able to use signs, tokens,
2:49:52
Speaker 1: and words with dynamic power and real efficiency. The symbols
2:49:56
Speaker 1: of the mysteries, embodied in the sign of the square
2:49:59
Speaker 1: encircled constant sstitute the eternal language of the Gods, the
2:50:02
Speaker 1: same in all worlds, from all eternity. They have had
2:50:06
Speaker 1: neither beginning of years nor end of days. They are
2:50:09
Speaker 1: contemporary with time and with eternity. They are the word
2:50:13
Speaker 1: of God, the divine logos, articulate and expressed in forms
2:50:17
Speaker 1: of language. Each sign possesses a corresponding vocal expression. Bodily
2:50:23
Speaker 1: gesture or mental intention. This fact is of great importance
2:50:27
Speaker 1: to the student of the wisdom, for in it rests
2:50:29
Speaker 1: the main reason of the secrecy and the intense watchfulness
2:50:32
Speaker 1: and carefulness of the stewards of the mysteries, lest the
2:50:35
Speaker 1: secret doctrines find expression on the lips or through the
2:50:38
Speaker 1: action of unfit persons to possess the secrets. For the
2:50:42
Speaker 1: secret power of the mysteries is within the signs. Any
2:50:46
Speaker 1: person attaining to natural and supernatural states by the process
2:50:49
Speaker 1: of development, if his heart be untuned in his mind,
2:50:52
Speaker 1: withdrawn from the divine to the human within him, that
2:50:55
Speaker 1: power becomes a power of evil instead of a power
2:50:58
Speaker 1: of good. An un faithful initiate in the degree of
2:51:01
Speaker 1: the mysteries he has attained, is capable, by virtue of
2:51:05
Speaker 1: his antecedent preparations and processes, of diverting the power to unholy, demoniacal, astral,
2:51:11
Speaker 1: and dangerous uses. The use of the signs, the vocal sounds,
2:51:14
Speaker 1: physical acts, and mental intentions was absolutely prohibited, except under
2:51:19
Speaker 1: rigorously tested conditions. For instance, the utterance of a symbolical
2:51:24
Speaker 1: sound or a physical act corresponding to a sign belonging
2:51:28
Speaker 1: to a given degree in a congregation of an inferior
2:51:31
Speaker 1: degree was fatal in its effects. In each degree, no
2:51:35
Speaker 1: initiates who have not attained that degree are admitted to
2:51:38
Speaker 1: its congregations. Only initiates of that degree and above it
2:51:43
Speaker 1: are capable of sustaining the pressure of dynamic force generated
2:51:46
Speaker 1: in the spiritual atmosphere and concentrated in that degree. The
2:51:50
Speaker 1: actual mental ejaculation of a sign under such circumstances brought
2:51:55
Speaker 1: the immediate putting forth of an occult power corresponding to it.
2:51:59
Speaker 1: In all all the congregations of the initiates, and inner
2:52:02
Speaker 1: guard was stationed within the sanctuary, chancel or oratory at
2:52:06
Speaker 1: the door of entrance, with the drawn sword in his hand,
2:52:09
Speaker 1: to ward off unqualified trespassers and intruders. It was no
2:52:13
Speaker 1: mere formal or metaphorical performance. It was at the risk
2:52:18
Speaker 1: of the life of any man attempting to make an
2:52:20
Speaker 1: entrance if he succeeded in crossing the threshold. Secret signs
2:52:24
Speaker 1: and passwords and other tests were applied to all who
2:52:27
Speaker 1: knocked at the door before admission was granted. The possession
2:52:31
Speaker 1: of the mysteries after initiation, and the use of the
2:52:34
Speaker 1: signs either vocally, action ally or ejaculatorily with intention in
2:52:39
Speaker 1: their use, not as mere mechanical repetition, or attended by
2:52:43
Speaker 1: occult powers directed to the subjects of their special intention,
2:52:47
Speaker 1: whether absent or present, or for purposes beneficial to the cause.
2:52:51
Speaker 1: In contemplation H. E. Sampson's Progressive Redemption, pages one hundred
2:52:56
Speaker 1: seventy one to one hundred seventy four. To open the
2:53:00
Speaker 1: lodge of one's own being to the higher verities is
2:53:03
Speaker 1: no simple task for those who have closed and sealed
2:53:06
Speaker 1: it by their own habitual thought, modes, preconceptions, and distrust
2:53:10
Speaker 1: of whatever is not sensibly demonstrable. Yet all these propensities
2:53:14
Speaker 1: must be eradicated or shut out, and the lodge close
2:53:17
Speaker 1: tiled against them. They have no part or place in
2:53:20
Speaker 1: the things of the inward man. Effort and practice also
2:53:23
Speaker 1: are needed to attain stability of mind, control of emotion
2:53:27
Speaker 1: and thought, and to acquire interior stillness and the harmony
2:53:30
Speaker 1: of all our parts. As the formal ceremony of lodge
2:53:34
Speaker 1: opening is achieved only by the organized co operation of
2:53:37
Speaker 1: its constituent officers, so the due opening of our inner
2:53:40
Speaker 1: man to God can only be accomplished by the consensus
2:53:43
Speaker 1: of all our parts and faculties. Absence or failure of
2:53:47
Speaker 1: any part invalidates the whole. The WM alone cannot open
2:53:51
Speaker 1: the lodge. He can only invite his brethren to assist
2:53:54
Speaker 1: him to do so by a concerted process, and the
2:53:57
Speaker 1: unified wills of his subordinates. So too, with opening the
2:54:01
Speaker 1: lodge of man's soul, his spiritual will as master Faculty,
2:54:06
Speaker 1: summons his other faculties to assist. It sees that none
2:54:09
Speaker 1: but Masons are present. By taking care that his thoughts
2:54:12
Speaker 1: and motives in approaching God are pure, calls all these
2:54:16
Speaker 1: brethren to order to prove their due qualification for the
2:54:19
Speaker 1: work in hand. And only then, after seeing that the
2:54:22
Speaker 1: lodge is properly formed, does he undertake the responsibility of
2:54:26
Speaker 1: invoking the descent of the divine blessing and influx upon
2:54:29
Speaker 1: the unified and dedicated whole of all which the Psalmist writes,
2:54:34
Speaker 1: How good and joyful a thing it is for brethren
2:54:36
Speaker 1: to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious
2:54:38
Speaker 1: ointment anointing, which flows down unto the skirts of the clothing,
2:54:42
Speaker 1: implying that the divine influx, when it descends in response
2:54:46
Speaker 1: to such an invocation, floods and illuminates the entire human organism,
2:54:50
Speaker 1: even to its carnal sense extremities, which are the skirts
2:54:54
Speaker 1: of the clothing of the soul. Compare also the Christian
2:54:58
Speaker 1: Master's words, when thou prayest enter into thy secret chamber,
2:55:02
Speaker 1: the lodge of the soul, and when thou hast shut
2:55:04
Speaker 1: thy door by tiling the mind to all outward concerns
2:55:07
Speaker 1: and thoughts, pray to the Father who seeth in secret,
2:55:10
Speaker 1: who shall reward thee openly by conscious communion. The foregoing
2:55:14
Speaker 1: may help both to interpret the meaning and solemn purpose
2:55:17
Speaker 1: of the opening in the first degree, and to indicate
2:55:20
Speaker 1: the nature of the conditions and spiritual atmosphere that ought
2:55:23
Speaker 1: to exist when a lodge is open for business. In
2:55:26
Speaker 1: that degree, if the lodge opening be a real opening
2:55:29
Speaker 1: in the sense here indicated, and not a mere ceremonial form.
2:55:33
Speaker 1: If the conditions and atmosphere referred to were actually induced
2:55:36
Speaker 1: at a Masonic meeting, it will be at once apparent
2:55:38
Speaker 1: that they must needs react powerfully upon a candidate who
2:55:42
Speaker 1: enters them seeking initiation and spiritual advancement. If he be
2:55:46
Speaker 1: truly a worthy candidate, properly prepared in his heart, and
2:55:50
Speaker 1: an earnest seeker for the light. The mere fact of
2:55:52
Speaker 1: his entering such an atmosphere will so impress and awaken
2:55:55
Speaker 1: his dormant sole faculties as in itself to constitute an
2:55:59
Speaker 1: initiation and an indelible memory, whilst the sensitive plate of
2:56:02
Speaker 1: his mind, thus stimulated, will be readily receptive of the
2:56:05
Speaker 1: ideas projected into it by the assembled brethren who are
2:56:08
Speaker 1: initiating him and receiving him into spiritual communion with themselves.
2:56:13
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if he be an unworthy or
2:56:15
Speaker 1: not properly prepared candidate, that atmosphere and those conditions will
2:56:19
Speaker 1: prove repellent to him, and he will himself be the
2:56:21
Speaker 1: first to wish to withdraw and not to repeat the experience.
2:56:25
Speaker 1: The closing of the first degree implies the reverse process
2:56:28
Speaker 1: of the opening, the relaxing of the inward energies, and
2:56:31
Speaker 1: the return of the mind to its former habitual level,
2:56:35
Speaker 1: Yet not without gratitude expressed for divine favors and perceptions
2:56:39
Speaker 1: received during the period of openness, or without a counsel
2:56:42
Speaker 1: to keep close the Book of the Heart and lay
2:56:44
Speaker 1: aside the use of its jewels until we are duly
2:56:46
Speaker 1: called to resume them. Since silence and secrecy are essential
2:56:50
Speaker 1: to the gestation and growth of the inward man. He
2:56:54
Speaker 1: who has seen God is dumb second or fellow craft degree.
2:56:59
Speaker 1: The opening of the second degree presupposes an ability to
2:57:02
Speaker 1: open up the inner nature and consciousness to a much
2:57:05
Speaker 1: more advanced stage than is possible to the beginner, who,
2:57:08
Speaker 1: in theory is supposed to undergo a long period of
2:57:10
Speaker 1: discipline and apprenticeship in the elementary work of self preparation,
2:57:14
Speaker 1: and to be able to satisfy certain tests that he
2:57:17
Speaker 1: has done so before being qualified for advancement to the
2:57:20
Speaker 1: fellow craft stage of self building. Again, that opening may
2:57:24
Speaker 1: be a personal work for the individual mason, or a
2:57:27
Speaker 1: collective work in an assembly of fellow crafts and superior
2:57:30
Speaker 1: masons to pass an apprentice to fellow craft rank. The
2:57:34
Speaker 1: title admitting the qualified apprentice to a fellowcraft lodge is
2:57:37
Speaker 1: one of great significance, which ordinarily passes without any observation
2:57:42
Speaker 1: or understanding of its propriety. It is said to denote
2:57:45
Speaker 1: in plenty, and to be illustrated by an gear of
2:57:48
Speaker 1: corn near to a fall of water, which two objects
2:57:51
Speaker 1: are literally the meaning of the Hebrew word in question.
2:57:55
Speaker 1: It is desirable to observe that this is meant to
2:57:57
Speaker 1: be descriptive of the candidate himself, of his own spiritual condition.
2:58:02
Speaker 1: It is he who is as an ear of corn
2:58:04
Speaker 1: planted near and nourished by a fall of water. His
2:58:08
Speaker 1: own spiritual growth, as achieved in the apprentice stage, is
2:58:11
Speaker 1: typified by the ripening corn, the fertilizing cause of its
2:58:15
Speaker 1: growth being the downpouring upon his inner nature of the
2:58:17
Speaker 1: vivifying dew of heaven, as the result of his aspiration
2:58:21
Speaker 1: towards the light. The work appropriated to the apprentice degree
2:58:25
Speaker 1: is that of gaining purity in control of his grosser nature,
2:58:28
Speaker 1: its appetites, and affections. It is symbolized by working the
2:58:32
Speaker 1: rough ashler as dug from the quarry into due shape
2:58:36
Speaker 1: for building purposes. The quarry is the undifferentiated raw material
2:58:41
Speaker 1: or group soul of humanity from which he has issued
2:58:43
Speaker 1: into individuated existence in this world, where his function is
2:58:47
Speaker 1: to convert himself into a true dye or square meat
2:58:50
Speaker 1: for the fabric of the temple designed by the Great
2:58:52
Speaker 1: Architect to be built in the Jerusalem above out of
2:58:55
Speaker 1: perfected human souls. The apprentice work, which relates to the
2:58:59
Speaker 1: subdual of the sense nature and its propensities being achieved.
2:59:03
Speaker 1: The next stage is the development in control of the
2:59:05
Speaker 1: intellectual nature, the investigation of the hidden paths of nature
2:59:09
Speaker 1: i e. The human psychological nature and science. The nosis
2:59:14
Speaker 1: of self knowledge, which, pushed to its limit, the candidate
2:59:17
Speaker 1: is told, leads to the throne of God himself and
2:59:20
Speaker 1: reveals the ultimate secrets of his own nature and the
2:59:23
Speaker 1: basic principles of intellectual as distinct from moral truth. It
2:59:29
Speaker 1: should be noted that the candidate is told that he
2:59:31
Speaker 1: is now permitted to extend his researches into these hidden paths.
2:59:36
Speaker 1: There is peril to the mentality of the candidate if
2:59:38
Speaker 1: this work is undertaken before the purifications of the apprentice
2:59:41
Speaker 1: stage have been accomplished. Hence, the permission is not accorded
2:59:46
Speaker 1: until that preliminary task has been done and duly tested.
2:59:50
Speaker 1: The work of the second degree is accordingly a purely
2:59:52
Speaker 1: philosophical work, involving deep psychological self analysis, experience of unusual
2:59:58
Speaker 1: phenomena as the psycho big faculties of the soul begin
3:00:01
Speaker 1: to unfold themselves, and the apprehension of abstract truth formerly
3:00:05
Speaker 1: described as mathematics. This work is altogether beyond both the
3:00:10
Speaker 1: mental horizon and the capacity of the average modern mason.
3:00:14
Speaker 1: Though in the mysteries of antiquity, the methesis or mental
3:00:17
Speaker 1: discipline was an outstanding feature and produced the intellectual giants
3:00:21
Speaker 1: of Greek philosophy. Hence it is that today the degree
3:00:25
Speaker 1: is found dull, unpicturesque, and unattractive, since psychic experience and
3:00:29
Speaker 1: intellectual principles cannot be made spectacular and dramatic. The ritual
3:00:34
Speaker 1: runs that our ancient brethren of this degree met in
3:00:37
Speaker 1: the port way of King Solomon's temple. This is a
3:00:40
Speaker 1: way of saying that natural philosophy is the porch way
3:00:43
Speaker 1: to the attainment of divine wisdom, that the study of
3:00:46
Speaker 1: man leads to knowledge of God by revealing to man
3:00:49
Speaker 1: the ultimate divinity at the base of human nature. This study,
3:00:53
Speaker 1: or self analysis of human nature Plato called geometry birth
3:00:56
Speaker 1: measuring the probing, sounding and determining the limits, proportions, and
3:01:01
Speaker 1: potentialities of our personal organism. In its physical and psychical aspects.
3:01:06
Speaker 1: The ordinary natural consciousness is directed outwards, perceives only outward objects,
3:01:12
Speaker 1: thinks only of an outward deity separate and away from us.
3:01:16
Speaker 1: It can accordingly cognize only shadows, images and illusions. The
3:01:21
Speaker 1: science of the mysteries directs that that process must be reversed.
3:01:25
Speaker 1: It says, just as you have symbolically shut and close
3:01:29
Speaker 1: tiled the door of your lodge against all outsiders, so
3:01:31
Speaker 1: you must shut out all perception of outward images, all
3:01:35
Speaker 1: desire for external things and material welfare, and turn your
3:01:38
Speaker 1: consciousness and aspirations wholly inward. For the vital and immortal principle,
3:01:44
Speaker 1: The kingdom of heaven is within you. It is not
3:01:46
Speaker 1: to be found outside you. Like the prodigal sun in
3:01:50
Speaker 1: the parable, you have wandered away from it into a
3:01:52
Speaker 1: far country and lost all consciousness of it. You have
3:01:56
Speaker 1: come down and down, as by a spiral motion or
3:01:59
Speaker 1: a winding steaircase, into this lower world and imperfect form
3:02:02
Speaker 1: of existence coiling around you as you came, increasingly thickening
3:02:06
Speaker 1: vestures culminating in your outermost dense body of flesh, whilst
3:02:10
Speaker 1: your mentality has woven about you, veil after veil of
3:02:13
Speaker 1: illusory notions concerning your real nature and the nature of
3:02:16
Speaker 1: true life. Now the time and the impulse have at
3:02:20
Speaker 1: last come for you to turn back to that inward world.
3:02:23
Speaker 1: Therefore reverse your steps. Look no longer outwards, but inwards.
3:02:29
Speaker 1: Go back up that same winding staircase. It will bring
3:02:33
Speaker 1: you to that center of life and sanctum sanctorum from
3:02:36
Speaker 1: which you have wandered. When the psalmist rites, who will
3:02:39
Speaker 1: go up the hill of the Lord, even he that
3:02:42
Speaker 1: hath clean hands and a pure heart. The meaning is
3:02:45
Speaker 1: identical with what is implied in the assent of the
3:02:47
Speaker 1: inwardly winding staircase of the second degree. Preliminary purification of
3:02:53
Speaker 1: the mind is essential to its rising to purer realms
3:02:56
Speaker 1: of being in loftier conscious states than it has been
3:02:58
Speaker 1: accustomed to. If the secrets of nature and the principles
3:03:02
Speaker 1: of intellectual truth are to become revealed to its view,
3:03:06
Speaker 1: as the Degree intends and promises, the mentality must not
3:03:09
Speaker 1: be fettered by mundane interests or subject to disturbance by
3:03:12
Speaker 1: carnal passions. If it is to contemplate its own intellectual
3:03:17
Speaker 1: faculties and trace them from their development until they are
3:03:20
Speaker 1: found to lead to the throne of God himself, and
3:03:22
Speaker 1: to be rooted in deity, it must discard all its
3:03:25
Speaker 1: former thought, habits prejudices, and preconceptions, and be prepared to
3:03:29
Speaker 1: receive humbly the illumination that will flood into it from
3:03:32
Speaker 1: the light of divine wisdom. For the determined student of
3:03:35
Speaker 1: the mental discipline implied by the second degree. There may
3:03:38
Speaker 1: be recommended two most instructive sources of information and examples
3:03:42
Speaker 1: of personal experience. One is the dialogues of Plato and
3:03:47
Speaker 1: the writings of Plotinus and other Neoplatonists. The other is
3:03:51
Speaker 1: the records of the classical Christian contemplatives, such as Eckhart
3:03:55
Speaker 1: or Rosbroeck, or the Interior Castle of Saint Teresa. The
3:04:00
Speaker 1: Fiedris of Plato, in particular, is an important record by
3:04:03
Speaker 1: an initiate of the ancient mysteries of the psychological experiences
3:04:07
Speaker 1: referred to in the fellow Craft degree. The subject is
3:04:11
Speaker 1: too lengthy for further exposition here beyond again indicating that
3:04:14
Speaker 1: it is in the illumined mental condition attained in this degree,
3:04:17
Speaker 1: that the discovery is made of the divine principle at
3:04:20
Speaker 1: the center of our organism, and that the sign of
3:04:22
Speaker 1: the degree is equivalent to a prayer that the sunlight
3:04:25
Speaker 1: of that exalted State may stand still and persist in
3:04:28
Speaker 1: us until we have affected the overthrow of all our
3:04:31
Speaker 1: enemies and eradicated all obstacles to our union with that principle.
3:04:36
Speaker 1: The reference to our ancient brethren receiving their wages at
3:04:39
Speaker 1: the porchway of the Temple of Wisdom is an allusion
3:04:42
Speaker 1: to an experience common to everyone in the fellow craft
3:04:45
Speaker 1: stage of development. He learns that old scores due by
3:04:48
Speaker 1: him to his fellow men must be paid off and
3:04:50
Speaker 1: old wrongs righted, and receives the wages of past sins
3:04:54
Speaker 1: recorded upon his subconsciousness by that pencil that observes and
3:04:57
Speaker 1: there records all our thoughts, words, and n as. The
3:05:01
Speaker 1: candidate leading the philosophic life realizes that he is justly
3:05:05
Speaker 1: entitled to those wages, and receives them without scruple or diffidence,
3:05:09
Speaker 1: knowing himself to be justly entitled to them, and only
3:05:11
Speaker 1: too glad to expiate and purge himself of old offenses.
3:05:16
Speaker 1: For we are all debtors to some one or other
3:05:18
Speaker 1: for our present position in life, and must repay what
3:05:21
Speaker 1: we owe to humanity, perhaps with tears or adversity, before
3:05:25
Speaker 1: we straighten our account with that eternal justice with which
3:05:28
Speaker 1: we aspire to become allied. Third or master Mason's degree.
3:05:33
Speaker 1: Before dealing with the opening and closing of the third degree,
3:05:37
Speaker 1: it should be observed that in the large symbolism, the
3:05:39
Speaker 1: teaching of the first and second degrees is carried forward
3:05:42
Speaker 1: into the third. The traditional tracing board of the third
3:05:46
Speaker 1: degree exhibits, in combination one the checkered floor work, two
3:05:51
Speaker 1: the two pillars at the porchway of the temple, three
3:05:54
Speaker 1: the winding staircase, and four a dormer window above the porchway.
3:06:00
Speaker 1: The brief explanation is given that the checker work is
3:06:02
Speaker 1: for the high priest to walk upon, and the dormer
3:06:05
Speaker 1: window is that which gave light to it. The entire
3:06:08
Speaker 1: symbol is but one comprehensive glyph or pictorial diagram of
3:06:12
Speaker 1: the condition of a candidate aspiring to master Mason's rank
3:06:16
Speaker 1: as high priest of his own personal temple. He must
3:06:19
Speaker 1: have his bodily nature and its varied desires under foot.
3:06:23
Speaker 1: He must have developed strength of will and character to
3:06:26
Speaker 1: walk upon this checker work and withstand its appeals. He
3:06:30
Speaker 1: must also be able to ascend the winding staircase of
3:06:33
Speaker 1: his inner nature, to educate and habituate his mentality to
3:06:36
Speaker 1: higher conscious states, and so establish it there that he
3:06:39
Speaker 1: will be unaffected by seductive or affrighting perceptions that there
3:06:42
Speaker 1: may meet him. By the cultivation of this strength and
3:06:46
Speaker 1: the ability to establish himself upon the loftier conscious levels.
3:06:50
Speaker 1: He coordinates the two pillars at the porch way of
3:06:52
Speaker 1: his inmost sanctuary, namely the physical and psychical supports of
3:06:56
Speaker 1: his organism, and acquires that stability involved in regeneration and
3:07:01
Speaker 1: requisite to him before passing on to that last and
3:07:04
Speaker 1: greatest trial which awaits him. In strength, will I establish
3:07:08
Speaker 1: my house that it may stand firm. Man's perfected organism
3:07:12
Speaker 1: is what is meant by my house. It was the
3:07:16
Speaker 1: same organism and the same stability that the Christian Master
3:07:19
Speaker 1: spoke of in saying, upon this rock, will I build
3:07:21
Speaker 1: my Church? And the gates of the underworld shall not
3:07:24
Speaker 1: prevail against it. During all the discipline and labor involved
3:07:28
Speaker 1: in attaining this stability, there has shone light on the
3:07:31
Speaker 1: path from the first moment that his apprentice's vision was
3:07:33
Speaker 1: open to larger truth. Light from the science and philosophy
3:07:37
Speaker 1: of the order itself, which is proving his porch way
3:07:40
Speaker 1: to the ultimate sanctuary within, like from friendly helpers and instructors.
3:07:45
Speaker 1: Above all, light from the sun in his own heavens,
3:07:48
Speaker 1: streaming through the dormer window of his illumined intelligence, and
3:07:51
Speaker 1: slowly but surely guiding his feet into the way of peace.
3:07:57
Speaker 1: But now the last and greatest trial of his fortitude
3:07:59
Speaker 1: and fidelity, one imposing upon him a still more serious
3:08:03
Speaker 1: obligation of endurance, awaits him in the total withdrawal of
3:08:06
Speaker 1: this kindly light. Hitherto, although guided by that light, he
3:08:11
Speaker 1: has progressed in virtue of his own natural powers and efforts.
3:08:15
Speaker 1: Now the time has come when those props have to
3:08:17
Speaker 1: be removed, when all reliance upon natural abilities, self will,
3:08:21
Speaker 1: and the normal rational understanding must be surrendered, and the
3:08:25
Speaker 1: aspirt must abandon himself utterly to the transformative action of
3:08:28
Speaker 1: his vital and immortal principle alone, passively suffering it to
3:08:32
Speaker 1: complete the work in entire independence of his lesser faculties.
3:08:36
Speaker 1: He must lose his life to save it. He must
3:08:39
Speaker 1: surrender all that he has hitherto felt to be his
3:08:41
Speaker 1: life in order to find life of an altogether higher order. Hence,
3:08:45
Speaker 1: the third degree is that of mystical death, of which
3:08:48
Speaker 1: bodily death is taken as figurative, just as bodily birth
3:08:52
Speaker 1: is taken in the first degree as figurative of entrance
3:08:55
Speaker 1: upon the path of regeneration. In all the mystery systems
3:08:59
Speaker 1: of the past will be found this degree of mystical
3:09:01
Speaker 1: death as an outstanding and essential feature prior to the
3:09:04
Speaker 1: final stage of perfection or regeneration. As an illustration, one
3:09:09
Speaker 1: has only to refer to a sectional diagram of the
3:09:12
Speaker 1: Great Pyramid of Egypt, which was so constructed as to
3:09:15
Speaker 1: be not merely a temple of initiation, but to record
3:09:18
Speaker 1: in permanent form the principles upon which regeneration is attainable.
3:09:23
Speaker 1: Its entrance passage extends for some distance into the building,
3:09:26
Speaker 1: as a narrow, ascending channel through which the postulant who
3:09:29
Speaker 1: desires to reach the center must creep in no small
3:09:31
Speaker 1: discomfort and restrictedness. This was to emblematize the discipline and
3:09:36
Speaker 1: uphill labour of self purification requisite in the apprentice degree.
3:09:41
Speaker 1: At a certain point, this restricted passage opens out into
3:09:44
Speaker 1: a long and lofty gallery, still upon a steeply rising gradient,
3:09:48
Speaker 1: up which the postulant had to pass, but in a
3:09:50
Speaker 1: condition of ease and liberty. This was to symbolize the
3:09:54
Speaker 1: condition of illumination and expanded intellectual liberty associated with the
3:09:58
Speaker 1: fellow Craft degree. It ended at a place where the
3:10:02
Speaker 1: candidate once more had to force his way on hands
3:10:05
Speaker 1: and knees through the smallest aperture of all one that
3:10:07
Speaker 1: led to the central chamber in which stood and still
3:10:10
Speaker 1: stands the great sarcophagus in which he was placed and
3:10:13
Speaker 1: underwent the last supreme ordeal, and whence he was raised
3:10:16
Speaker 1: from the dead, initiated, and perfected. The title of admission
3:10:20
Speaker 1: communicated to the candidate for the third degree is noteworthy,
3:10:24
Speaker 1: as also the reason for it. It is a Hebrew
3:10:27
Speaker 1: name said to be that of the first artificer in metals,
3:10:30
Speaker 1: and to mean in worldly possessions. Now it will be
3:10:34
Speaker 1: obvious that the name of the first man who worked
3:10:36
Speaker 1: at metal making in the ordinary sense can be of
3:10:39
Speaker 1: no possible interest or concern to us to day, nor
3:10:42
Speaker 1: has the information the least bearing upon the subject of
3:10:45
Speaker 1: human regeneration. It is obviously a veil of allegory concealing
3:10:49
Speaker 1: some relevant truth. Such it will be found to be
3:10:53
Speaker 1: upon recognizing that Hebrew biblical names represent not persons but
3:10:57
Speaker 1: personifications of spiritual principles, and that Biblical history is not
3:11:01
Speaker 1: ordinary history of temporal events, but a record of eternally
3:11:04
Speaker 1: true spiritual facts. The matter is therefore interpretable as follows.
3:11:10
Speaker 1: We know from the teaching of the entered apprentice degree
3:11:13
Speaker 1: what money and metals are in the Masonic sense, and
3:11:16
Speaker 1: that they represent the attractive power of temporal possessions and
3:11:20
Speaker 1: earthly belongings and affections of whatever description. We know too,
3:11:24
Speaker 1: that from the attraction and seductiveness of these things, and
3:11:27
Speaker 1: even from the desire for them, it is essential to
3:11:30
Speaker 1: be absolutely free if one desires to attain that light
3:11:33
Speaker 1: and those riches of wisdom for which the candidate professes
3:11:36
Speaker 1: to long. Not that it is necessary for him to
3:11:39
Speaker 1: become literally and physically dispossessed of worldly possessions, but it
3:11:43
Speaker 1: is essential that he should be so utterly detached from
3:11:46
Speaker 1: them that he cares not whether he owns any or not,
3:11:49
Speaker 1: and is content if need be, to be divested of
3:11:52
Speaker 1: them entirely. If they stand in the way of his
3:11:54
Speaker 1: finding treasure in heaven, for so long as he clings
3:11:57
Speaker 1: to them or they exercise control over him, so long
3:12:00
Speaker 1: will his initiation into anything better be deferred. It follows then,
3:12:05
Speaker 1: that it is the personal soul of the candidate himself
3:12:08
Speaker 1: which is the artificer in metals referred to, and which,
3:12:11
Speaker 1: during the whole of its physical existence, has been engaged
3:12:14
Speaker 1: in trafficking with metals. Desire for worldly possessions, for sensation
3:12:19
Speaker 1: and experience in this outward world of good and evil
3:12:22
Speaker 1: brought the soul into this world. There it has woven
3:12:26
Speaker 1: around itself its present body of flesh, every desire and thought,
3:12:30
Speaker 1: being an artificer, adding something to or modifying its natural encasement.
3:12:35
Speaker 1: The Greek philosophers used to teach that souls secrete their
3:12:38
Speaker 1: bodies as a snail secretes his shell, and our own
3:12:41
Speaker 1: poet Spencer truly wrote, for of the soul, the body
3:12:45
Speaker 1: form doth take, and soul is form, and doth the
3:12:48
Speaker 1: body make. If then, desire for physical experience and material
3:12:53
Speaker 1: things brought the soul into material conditions, as is also
3:12:57
Speaker 1: indicated in the Great Parable of the Prodigal Son, the
3:13:00
Speaker 1: relinquishing of that desire is the first necessary step to
3:13:03
Speaker 1: ensure its return to the condition. Whence it first emanated,
3:13:07
Speaker 1: satiation within consequent disgust at the husks of things instigated
3:13:11
Speaker 1: the prodigal son to aspire to return home. Similar repletion
3:13:16
Speaker 1: and revolt drives many a man to lose all desire
3:13:19
Speaker 1: for external things and to seek for peace within himself,
3:13:22
Speaker 1: and there redirect his energies in quest of possessions which
3:13:24
Speaker 1: are abiding and real. This is the moment of his
3:13:28
Speaker 1: true conversion, and the moment when he is ripe for
3:13:30
Speaker 1: initiation into the hidden mysteries of his own being. The
3:13:34
Speaker 1: first and second degrees of masonry imply that the candidate
3:13:38
Speaker 1: has undergone lengthy discipline in the renunciation of external things
3:13:41
Speaker 1: and the cultivation of desire for those that are within.
3:13:45
Speaker 1: But notwithstanding that he has passed through all the discipline
3:13:48
Speaker 1: of those degrees, he is represented at the end of
3:13:50
Speaker 1: them as being still not entirely purified, and to be
3:13:53
Speaker 1: still in worldly possessions, in the sense that a residue
3:13:57
Speaker 1: of attraction by them and reliance upon himself lingers in
3:14:00
Speaker 1: his heart. And it is these last, subtle, close clinging
3:14:03
Speaker 1: elements of base metal in him that need to be
3:14:05
Speaker 1: eradicated if perfection is to be attained. The ingrained defects
3:14:10
Speaker 1: and tendencies of the soul, as the result of all
3:14:13
Speaker 1: its past habits and experiences, are not suddenly eliminated or
3:14:16
Speaker 1: easily subdued. Self Will and pride are very subtle in
3:14:20
Speaker 1: their nature, and may continue to deceive their victim long
3:14:23
Speaker 1: after he has purged himself of grosser faults, as Cain
3:14:27
Speaker 1: was the murderer of Abel. So every taint of base
3:14:30
Speaker 1: metal in oneself debases the gold of the vital and
3:14:33
Speaker 1: immortal principle. It must be renounced, died to, and transmuted
3:14:37
Speaker 1: in the crucial process of the third degree. Hence it
3:14:41
Speaker 1: is that the candidate is entrusted with a name that
3:14:43
Speaker 1: designates himself at this stage, and that indicates that he
3:14:46
Speaker 1: is still in worldly possessions, that is, that some residue
3:14:50
Speaker 1: of the spirit of this world yet lingers in him,
3:14:52
Speaker 1: which it is necessary to eliminate from his nature before
3:14:55
Speaker 1: he can be raised to the sublime degree of master.
3:14:59
Speaker 1: Examination of the text of the Opening and closing of
3:15:02
Speaker 1: the Lodge in the third degree discloses the whole of
3:15:04
Speaker 1: the philosophy upon which the Masonic system is reared. It
3:15:08
Speaker 1: indicates that the human soul has originated in the eternal East,
3:15:12
Speaker 1: that Eeast being referable to the world of spirit, and
3:15:15
Speaker 1: not to any geographical direction, and that thence it has
3:15:18
Speaker 1: directed its course towards the West, the material world, which
3:15:21
Speaker 1: is the antipodes of the spiritual, and into which the
3:15:24
Speaker 1: soul has wandered its purpose. In so journeying from spiritual
3:15:28
Speaker 1: to physical conditions is declared to be the quest and
3:15:31
Speaker 1: recovery of something it has lost, but which, by its
3:15:34
Speaker 1: own industry in suitable instruction, it hopes to find. From this,
3:15:38
Speaker 1: it follows that the loss itself occurred prior to its
3:15:41
Speaker 1: descent into this world, otherwise that descent would not have
3:15:44
Speaker 1: been necessary. What it is that has been lost is
3:15:47
Speaker 1: not explicitly declared, but is implied, and is stated to
3:15:50
Speaker 1: form the genuine secrets of a master mason. It is
3:15:54
Speaker 1: the loss of a word, or rather of the word,
3:15:57
Speaker 1: the divine logos or basic root in essence of our
3:16:00
Speaker 1: own being. In other words, the soul of man has
3:16:03
Speaker 1: ceased to be God conscious and has degenerated into the limited,
3:16:07
Speaker 1: terrestrial consciousness of the ordinary human being. It is in
3:16:11
Speaker 1: the condition spoken of in the cosmic parable of atom,
3:16:14
Speaker 1: when extruded from Eden, an exile from the divine presence,
3:16:17
Speaker 1: and condemned to toil and trouble. The quest after this
3:16:21
Speaker 1: lost word is declared by the wardens to have been
3:16:23
Speaker 1: so far abortive, and to have resulted in the discovery
3:16:26
Speaker 1: not of that reality, but of substitutional images of it, all,
3:16:31
Speaker 1: which implies that in the strength of merely his natural
3:16:34
Speaker 1: temporal intelligence. Man can find and know nothing more in
3:16:37
Speaker 1: this world than shadows, images, and phenomenal forms of realities
3:16:41
Speaker 1: which abide eternally and nominally in the world of spirit,
3:16:44
Speaker 1: to which his temporal faculties are at present closed. Yet
3:16:48
Speaker 1: there remains a way of regaining consciousness of that higher
3:16:51
Speaker 1: world than life. It is by bringing into function a
3:16:55
Speaker 1: now dormant and submerged faculty resident at the depth and
3:16:58
Speaker 1: center of his being. That dormant faculty is the vital
3:17:02
Speaker 1: and immortal principle which exists as the central point of
3:17:05
Speaker 1: the circle of his individuality. As the outward universe is
3:17:09
Speaker 1: the externalized projection of an indwelling, imminent deity, so is
3:17:13
Speaker 1: the outward individual man the externalization and diffusion of an
3:17:17
Speaker 1: inherent divine germ, albeit perverted and distorted by personal self,
3:17:21
Speaker 1: will and desire, which have dislocated and shut off his
3:17:24
Speaker 1: consciousness from his root of being. Recover contact with that
3:17:27
Speaker 1: central divine principle by a voluntary renunciation of the intervening
3:17:31
Speaker 1: obstructions and inharmonious elements in oneself, and man at once
3:17:35
Speaker 1: ceases to be merely the rationalized animal. He now is
3:17:38
Speaker 1: and becomes grafted upon a new and divine life principle,
3:17:41
Speaker 1: A sharer of omniscience and a co operator with deity.
3:17:45
Speaker 1: He recovers the lost and genuine secrets of his own being,
3:17:48
Speaker 1: and has forever finished with substitutions, shadows, and simulacra of reality.
3:17:54
Speaker 1: He reaches a point and lives from a center from
3:17:56
Speaker 1: which no master Mason can ever err, or will ever
3:17:59
Speaker 1: again desire to err, for it is the end object
3:18:02
Speaker 1: and goal of his existence. Meanwhile, until actual recovery of
3:18:07
Speaker 1: that lost secret, man must put up with its substitutions
3:18:10
Speaker 1: and regard these as sacramental of concealed realities, contact with
3:18:14
Speaker 1: which will be his great reward if he submits himself
3:18:17
Speaker 1: to the conditions upon which alone he may discover them.
3:18:20
Speaker 1: The existence of those realities and the regiment essential to
3:18:24
Speaker 1: their enjoyment are inculcated by Masonry, as they have been
3:18:27
Speaker 1: by every other initiatory order of the past. And it
3:18:30
Speaker 1: is for the fact that this knowledge is and always
3:18:32
Speaker 1: has been conserved in the world so as to be
3:18:34
Speaker 1: ever available for earnest aspirant towards it, that gratitude is
3:18:38
Speaker 1: expressed to the Grand Master of all for having never
3:18:40
Speaker 1: left himself or the way of return to him without
3:18:43
Speaker 1: witness in this outer world. As much has been said
3:18:47
Speaker 1: about the ceremony of the third degree in other papers,
3:18:50
Speaker 1: it is unnecessary here to expound it further. It may
3:18:54
Speaker 1: be stated, however, that it alone constitutes the Masonic initiation.
3:18:59
Speaker 1: The first and second degrees are strictly but preparatory stages
3:19:03
Speaker 1: leading up to initiation. They are not the initiation itself.
3:19:07
Speaker 1: They but prescribe the purification of the bodily and mental
3:19:10
Speaker 1: nature necessary to qualify the candidate for the end which
3:19:13
Speaker 1: crowns the whole work. To those unacquainted with what is
3:19:17
Speaker 1: really involved in actual as distinct from merely ceremonial initiation,
3:19:21
Speaker 1: and who have no notion of what initiation meant in
3:19:24
Speaker 1: the old schools of wisdom and still means for those
3:19:26
Speaker 1: who understand the theory of regenerative science, it is well
3:19:29
Speaker 1: nigh impossible to convey any idea of its process or
3:19:33
Speaker 1: its results. The modern mason, however high in titular rank,
3:19:38
Speaker 1: is as little qualified to understand the subject as the
3:19:40
Speaker 1: man who has never entered a lodge to become initiated
3:19:44
Speaker 1: or perfected. Says an old authority, Plutarch involves dying, not
3:19:49
Speaker 1: a physical death, but a moral way of dying, in
3:19:52
Speaker 1: which the soul is loosened from the body in the
3:19:54
Speaker 1: sensitive life and becoming temporarily detached, therefrom is set free
3:19:58
Speaker 1: to enter the world of eternal life and immortal being. This,
3:20:02
Speaker 1: after most drastic preliminary disciplines, was achieved in a state
3:20:06
Speaker 1: of trance and under the supervision of duly qualified masters
3:20:09
Speaker 1: and adepts, who intermitted the candidate's liberated soul into its
3:20:13
Speaker 1: own interior principles, until it at last reached the blazing
3:20:16
Speaker 1: star or glory at its own center, in the light
3:20:19
Speaker 1: of which it simultaneously knew itself and God and realized
3:20:22
Speaker 1: their unity and the points of fellowship between them. Then
3:20:27
Speaker 1: it was that from this at once awful and sublime experience,
3:20:30
Speaker 1: the initiated soul was brought back to its bodily encasement
3:20:34
Speaker 1: again and reunited to the companions of its former toils,
3:20:37
Speaker 1: to resume its temporal life, but with conscious realization of
3:20:40
Speaker 1: life eternal superadded to its knowledge and its powers. Then
3:20:45
Speaker 1: only was it entitled to the name of Master Mason.
3:20:48
Speaker 1: Then only could it exclaim in the words of another
3:20:51
Speaker 1: initiate Empedocles, farewell all earthly allies. Henceforth am I no
3:20:56
Speaker 1: mortal white, but an immortal angel, ascending up into Divinity
3:20:59
Speaker 1: and reflecting upon that likeness of it which I have
3:21:02
Speaker 1: found in myself. That secrets of freemasonry and of initiation
3:21:07
Speaker 1: are largely connected with this process of introversion of the
3:21:10
Speaker 1: soul to its own center. And beyond this brief reference
3:21:13
Speaker 1: to the subject, it is inexpedient here to say more,
3:21:16
Speaker 1: But in confirmation of what has been indicated, it may
3:21:19
Speaker 1: be useful to refer to the twenty third Psalm, in
3:21:22
Speaker 1: which the Hebrew initiates speak of both the supreme experience
3:21:25
Speaker 1: of being passed through the valley of the shadow of
3:21:28
Speaker 1: death and the preliminary phases of mental preparation for that ordeal.
3:21:33
Speaker 1: Stripping that familiar psalm of the gorgeous metaphor given it
3:21:36
Speaker 1: in the beautiful Biblical translation, its real meaning may be
3:21:39
Speaker 1: paraphrased and explained for Masonic students as follows. The vital
3:21:44
Speaker 1: and immortal principle within me is my initiator and is
3:21:47
Speaker 1: all sufficient to lead me to God. It has made
3:21:51
Speaker 1: me lie down in self discipline and humiliation in green
3:21:55
Speaker 1: pastures of meditation and mental sustenance. It has led me
3:21:59
Speaker 1: beside still waters of contemplation as distinct from the rough
3:22:04
Speaker 1: sea of passion of my natural self. It is restoring
3:22:08
Speaker 1: my soul, reintegrating it out of chaos and disorder. Even
3:22:12
Speaker 1: when I come to pass through the valley of deadly gloom,
3:22:15
Speaker 1: my own interior veils of darkness, I will fear no evil,
3:22:20
Speaker 1: for it is with me as a guiding star. Its
3:22:22
Speaker 1: directions and disciplines will safeguard me. It provides me with
3:22:27
Speaker 1: the means of overcoming my inner enemies and weaknesses. It
3:22:30
Speaker 1: anoints my intelligence with the oil of wisdom. The cup
3:22:33
Speaker 1: of my mind brims over with new light and consciousness.
3:22:37
Speaker 1: The divine love and truth which I shall find face
3:22:40
Speaker 1: to face at my center, will be a conscious presence
3:22:42
Speaker 1: to me all the days of my temporal life, and
3:22:45
Speaker 1: thereafter I shall dwell in a house of the Lord,
3:22:48
Speaker 1: a glorified spiritual body forever. The third degree is completed
3:22:53
Speaker 1: in and can only be more fully expounded by reference
3:22:56
Speaker 1: to the Holy Royal arch Ceremony. But it further paper
3:23:00
Speaker 1: will therefore be devoted to that ceremony. The Masonic apron
3:23:06
Speaker 1: from what has been said in these pages, the full
3:23:09
Speaker 1: significance of the apron will now be perceived and may
3:23:12
Speaker 1: be summarized. Thus. One, the apron is the symbol of
3:23:16
Speaker 1: the corporeal vesture and condition of the soul, not so
3:23:19
Speaker 1: much of the temporal physical body as of its permanent,
3:23:22
Speaker 1: invisible corporeality, which will survive the death of the mortal
3:23:25
Speaker 1: Part Two. The soul fabricates its own body or apron,
3:23:30
Speaker 1: by its own desires and thoughts see Genesis three. Seven.
3:23:34
Speaker 1: They made themselves aprons, And as these are pure or
3:23:37
Speaker 1: impure soul, will that body be correspondingly transparent in white
3:23:41
Speaker 1: or dense and opaque. Three. The investiture of the candidate
3:23:46
Speaker 1: with the apron in each degree by the senior warden
3:23:48
Speaker 1: as the Master's delegate for that purpose, is meant to
3:23:51
Speaker 1: inculcate this truth. For the senior warden represents the soul, which,
3:23:55
Speaker 1: in accordance with its own spirituality, automatically clothes itself with
3:23:59
Speaker 1: its own sad, self made vesture in a way that
3:24:01
Speaker 1: marks its own progress or regress. Four. The unadorned white
3:24:06
Speaker 1: apron of the first degree indicates the purity of soul
3:24:09
Speaker 1: contemplated as being attained in that degree. Five. The pale
3:24:14
Speaker 1: blue rosettes added to the apron in the second degree
3:24:16
Speaker 1: indicate that progress is being made in the science of regeneration,
3:24:20
Speaker 1: and that the candidate's spirituality is beginning to develop and
3:24:23
Speaker 1: bud through blue. The color of the sky is traditionally
3:24:27
Speaker 1: associated with devotion to spiritual concerns. Six. In the third degree,
3:24:33
Speaker 1: still further progress is emblematized by the increased blue adornments
3:24:37
Speaker 1: of the apron, as also by its silver tassels and
3:24:40
Speaker 1: the silver serpent used to fasten the apron strings. In
3:24:43
Speaker 1: the first and second degrees, no metal has appeared upon
3:24:46
Speaker 1: the apron. The candidate has been theoretically divesting himself of
3:24:51
Speaker 1: all base metals and transmuting them into spiritual riches. With mastership,
3:24:56
Speaker 1: he has attained an influx of those riches under the
3:24:58
Speaker 1: emblem of the tassels of s silver, a colorless precious
3:25:01
Speaker 1: metal always associated with the soul, as gold by reason
3:25:05
Speaker 1: of its supreme value and warm color, is associated with spirit.
3:25:09
Speaker 1: The silver serpent is the emblem of divine wisdom knitting
3:25:12
Speaker 1: the soul's new made vesture together. Seven, the pale blue
3:25:17
Speaker 1: and silver of the master Mason's apron become intensified in
3:25:20
Speaker 1: the deep blue and gold ornamentation worn by the Grand
3:25:23
Speaker 1: Lodge officers, who, in theory have evolved to still deeper
3:25:26
Speaker 1: spirituality and transmuted themselves from silver into fine gold. The
3:25:31
Speaker 1: King's daughter, the Soul, is all glorious within her clothing
3:25:35
Speaker 1: is of wrought gold, i e. Wrought or fabricated by
3:25:39
Speaker 1: her own spiritual energies. A prayer at Lodge closing, O
3:25:44
Speaker 1: Sovereign and most worshipful of all Masters, who, in thy
3:25:47
Speaker 1: infinite love and wisdom, has devised our order as a
3:25:51
Speaker 1: means to draw Thy children nearer Thee and hast so
3:25:54
Speaker 1: ordained its officers that they are emblems of thy sevenfold power.
3:25:58
Speaker 1: Be thou unto us an outer guard, and defend us
3:26:00
Speaker 1: from the perils that beset us when we turn from
3:26:03
Speaker 1: that which is without to that which is within. Be
3:26:06
Speaker 1: thou unto us an inner guard, and preserve our souls
3:26:09
Speaker 1: that desire to pass within the portal of thy holy mysteries.
3:26:13
Speaker 1: Be unto us the younger Deacon, and teach our wayward
3:26:16
Speaker 1: feet the true and certain steps upon the path that
3:26:18
Speaker 1: leads to Thee. Be thou also the elder Deacon, and
3:26:21
Speaker 1: guide us up the steep and winding stairway to thy throne.
3:26:25
Speaker 1: Be unto us, the lesser Warden, and in the meridian
3:26:28
Speaker 1: sunlight of our understanding, speak to us in sacraments that
3:26:31
Speaker 1: shall declare the splendors of thy unmanifested light. Be thou
3:26:35
Speaker 1: also unto us, the greater Warden. And in the awful
3:26:38
Speaker 1: hour of disappearing light, when vision fails and thought has
3:26:41
Speaker 1: no more strength, be with us, still revealing to us,
3:26:45
Speaker 1: as we may bear them, the hidden mysteries of thy shadow.
3:26:49
Speaker 1: And so through light and darkness raise us, Great Master,
3:26:53
Speaker 1: till we are made one with thee in the unspeakable
3:26:55
Speaker 1: glory of thy presence in the east. So mote it
3:26:59
Speaker 1: be