It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle
often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated. "Let him who hath
knowledge, understand! let him who understands, calculate!" he often
says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint John, the
favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour,
therefore did not write to be understood by the multitude.
The Sephar Yezirah, the Sohar, and the Apocalypse are the completest
embodiments of Occultism. They contain more meanings than words; their
expressions are figurative as poetry and exact as numbers. The
Apocalypse sums up, completes, and surpasses all the Science of Abraham
and of Solomon. The visions of Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, and of the
new Symbolic Temple, are equally mysterious expressions, veiled by
figures of the enigmatic dogmas of the Kabalah, and their symbols are as
little understood by the Commentators, as those of Free Masonry.
The Septenary is the Crown of the Numbers, because it unites the
Triangle of the Idea to the Square of the Form.
The more the great Hierophants were at pains to conceal their absolute
Science, the more they sought to add grandeur to and multiply its
symbols. The huge pyramids, with their triangular sides of elevation and
square bases, represented their Metaphysics, founded upon the knowledge
of Nature. That knowledge of Nature had for its symbolic key the
gigantic form of that huge Sphinx, which has hollowed its deep bed in
the sand, while keeping watch at the feet of the Pyramids. The Seven
grand monuments called the Wonders of the World, were the magnificent
Commentaries on the Seven lines that composed the Pyramids, and on the
Seven mystic gates of Thebes.
The Septenary philosophy of Initiation among the Ancients may be summed
up thus:
Three Absolute Principles which are but One Principle: four elementary
forms which are but one; all forming a Single Whole, compounded of the
Idea and the Form.
The three Principles were these:
1º. BEING IS BEING.
In Philosophy, identity of the Idea and of Being or Verity; in Religion,
the first Principle, THE FATHER.
2º. BEING IS REAL.
In Philosophy, identity of Knowing and of Being or Reality; in Religion,
the LOCOS of Plato, the _Demiourgos_, the WORD.
3º. BEING IS LOGIC.
In Philosophy, identity of the Reason and Reality; in Religion,
Providence, the Divine Action that makes real the Good, that which in
Christianity we call THE HOLY SPIRIT.
The _union_ of all the Seven colors is the _White_, the analogous symbol
of the GOOD: the _absence_ of all is the _Black_, the analogous symbol
of the EVIL. There are three primary colors, _Red_, _Yellow_, and
_Blue_; and four secondary, _Orange_, _Green_, _Indigo_, and _Violet_;
and all these God displays to man in the rainbow; and they have their
analogies also in the moral and intellectual world. The same number,
_Seven_, continually reappears in the Apocalypse, compounded of _three_
and _four_; and these numbers relate to the last Seven of the Sephiroth,
three answering to BENIGNITY or MERCY, SEVERITY or JUSTICE, and BEAUTY
or HARMONY; and four to _Netzach_, _Hōd_, _Yesōd_, and _Malakoth_,
VICTORY, GLORY, STABILITY, and DOMINATION. The same numbers also
represent the _first_ three Sephiroth, KETHER, KHOKMAH, and BAINAH, or
_Will_, _Wisdom_, and _Understanding_, which, with DAATH or
_Intellection_ or _Thought_, are also four, DAATH not being regarded as
a Sephirah, not as the Deity acting, or as a potency, energy, or
attribute, but as the Divine Action.
The Sephiroth are commonly figured in the Kabalah as constituting a
human form, the ADAM KADMON or MACROCOSM. Thus arranged, the universal
law of Equipoise is three times exemplified. From that of the Divine
Intellectual, Active, Masculine ENERGY, and the Passive CAPACITY to
produce Thought, the action of THINKING results. From that of BENIGNITY
and SEVERITY, HARMONY flows; and from that of VICTORY or an Infinite
overcoming, and GLORY, which, being Infinite, would seem to forbid the
existence of obstacles or opposition, results STABILITY or PERMANENCE,
which is the perfect DOMINION of the Infinite WILL.
The last nine Sephiroth are included in, at the same time that they have
flowed forth from, the first of all, KETHER, or the CROWN. Each also, in
succession flowed from, and yet still remains included in, the one
preceding it. The Will of God _includes_ His Wisdom, and His Wisdom _is_
His Will specially developed and acting. This Wisdom is the LOGOS that
creates, mistaken and personified by Simon Magus and the succeeding
Gnostics. By means of its utterance, the letter YŌD, it creates the
worlds, first in the Divine Intellect as an Idea, which invested with
form became the fabricated World, the Universe of material reality. YŌD
and HE, two letters of the Ineffable Name of the Manifested Deity,
represent the Male and the Female, the Active and the Passive in
Equilibrium, and the VAV completes the Trinity and the Triliteral Name
[Hebrew: יהו], the Divine Triangle, which with the repetition of the
_He_ becomes the Tetragrammaton.
Thus the ten Sephiroth contain all the Sacred Numbers, _three_, _five_,
_seven_, and _nine_, and the perfect Number _Ten_, and correspond with
the Tetractys of Pythagoras.
BEING IS BEING, [Hebrew: אהיה אשר אהיה], _Ahayah Asar Ahayah_. This is
the Principle, the "BEGINNING."
In the Beginning was, that is to say, IS, WAS, and WILL BE, the WORD,
that is to say, the REASON that _Speaks_.
Εν αρχη ην Ό Λογος!
The Word is the reason of belief, and in it also is the expression of
the Faith which makes Science a living thing. The Word, Λογος, is the
Source of Logic. Jesus is the Word Incarnate. The accord of the Reason
with Faith, of Knowledge with Belief, of Authority with Liberty, has
become in modern times the veritable enigma of the Sphinx.
It is WISDOM that, in the Kabalistic Books of the Proverbs and
Ecclesiasticus, is the Creative Agent of God. Elsewhere in the Hebrew
writings it is [Hebrew: דבר יהוה], _Debar Iahavah_, the Word of God. It
is by His uttered Word that God reveals Himself to us; not alone in the
visible and invisible but intellectual creation, but also in our
convictions, consciousness, and instincts. Hence it is that certain
beliefs are universal. The conviction of all men that God is good led to
a belief in a Devil, the fallen _Lucifer_ or _Light-bearer_, Shaitan the
Adversary, Ahriman and Tuphōn, as an attempt to explain the existence of
Evil, and make it consistent with the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and
Benevolence of God.
Nothing surpasses and nothing equals, as a Summary of all the doctrines
of the Old World, those brief words engraven by HERMES on a Stone, and
known under the name of "_The Tablet of Emerald_:" the Unity of Being
and the Unity of the Harmonies, ascending and descending, the
progressive and proportional scale of the Word; the immutable law of the
Equilibrium, and the proportioned progress of the universal analogies;
the relation of the Idea to the Word, giving the measure of the relation
between the Creator and the Created, the necessary mathematics of the
Infinite, proved by the measures of a single corner of the Finite;--all
this is expressed by this single proposition of the Great Egyptian
Hierophant:
_"What is Superior is as that which is Inferior, and what is Below is as
that which is Above, to form the Marvels of the Unity."_
XX.
GRAND MASTER OF ALL SYMBOLIC LODGES.
The true Mason is a practical Philosopher, who, under religious emblems,
in all ages adopted by wisdom, builds upon plans traced by nature and
reason the moral edifice of knowledge. He ought to find, in the
symmetrical relation of all the parts of this rational edifice, the
principle and rule of all his duties, the source of all his pleasures.
He improves his moral nature, becomes a better man, and finds in the
reunion of virtuous men, assembled with pure views, the means of
multiplying his acts of beneficence. Masonry and Philosophy, without
being one and the same thing, have the same object, and propose to
themselves the same end, the worship of the Grand Architect of the
Universe, acquaintance and familiarity with the wonders of nature, and
the happiness of humanity attained by the constant practice of all the
virtues.
As Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges, it is your especial duty to aid
in restoring Masonry to its primitive purity. You have become an
instructor. Masonry long wandered in error. Instead of improving, it
degenerated from its primitive simplicity, and retrograded toward a
system, distorted by stupidity and ignorance, which, unable to construct
a beautiful machine, made a complicated one. Less than two hundred years
ago, its organization was simple, and altogether moral, its emblems,
allegories, and ceremonies easy to be understood, and their purpose and
object readily to be seen. It was then confined to a very small number
of Degrees. Its constitutions were like those of a Society of Essenes,
written in the first century of our era. There could be seen the
primitive Christianity, organized into Masonry, the school of Pythagoras
without incongruities or absurdities; a Masonry simple and significant,
in which it was not necessary to torture the mind to discover reasonable
interpretations; a Masonry at once religious and philosophical, worthy
of a good citizen and an enlightened philanthropist.
Innovators and inventors overturned that primitive simplicity.
Ignorance engaged in the work of making Degrees, and trifles and gewgaws
and pretended mysteries, absurd or hideous, usurped the place of Masonic
Truth. The picture of a horrid vengeance, the poniard and the bloody
head, appeared in the peaceful Temple of Masonry, without sufficient
explanation of their symbolic meaning. Oaths out of all proportion with
their object, shocked the candidate, and then became ridiculous, and
were wholly disregarded. Acolytes were exposed to tests, and compelled
to perform acts, which, if real, would have been abominable; but being
mere chimeras, were preposterous, and excited contempt and laughter
only. Eight hundred Degrees of one kind and another were invented:
Infidelity and even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry. The
rituals even of the respectable Degrees, copied and mutilated by
ignorant men, became nonsensical and trivial; and the words so corrupted
that it has hitherto been found impossible to recover many of them at
all. Candidates were made to degrade themselves, and to submit to
insults not tolerable to a man of spirit and honor.
Hence it was that, practically, the largest portion of the Degrees
claimed by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and before it by the
Rite of Perfection, fell into disuse, were merely communicated, and
their rituals became jejune and insignificant. These Rites resembled
those old palaces and baronial castles, the different parts of which,
built at different periods remote from one another, upon plans and
according to tastes that greatly varied, formed a discordant and
incongruous whole. Judaism and chivalry, superstition and philosophy,
philanthropy and insane hatred and longing for vengeance, a pure
morality and unjust and illegal revenge, were found strangely mated and
standing hand in hand within the Temples of Peace and Concord; and the
whole system was one grotesque commingling of incongruous things, of
contrasts and contradictions, of shocking and fantastic extravagances,
of parts repugnant to good taste, and fine conceptions overlaid and
disfigured by absurdities engendered by ignorance, fanaticism, and a
senseless mysticism.
An empty and sterile pomp, impossible indeed to be carried out, and to
which no meaning whatever was attached, with far-fetched explanations
that were either so many stupid platitudes or themselves needed an
interpreter; lofty titles, arbitrarily assumed, and to which the
inventors had not condescended to attach any explanation that should
acquit them of the folly of assuming temporal rank, power, and titles of
nobility, made the world laugh, and the Initiate feel ashamed.
Some of these titles we retain; but they have with us meanings entirely
consistent with that Spirit of Equality which is the foundation and
peremptory law of its being of all Masonry. The _Knight_, with us, is he
who devotes his hand, his heart, his brain, to the Science of Masonry,
and professes himself the Sworn Soldier of Truth: the Prince is he who
aims to be _Chief [Princeps]_, _first_, _leader_, among his equals, in
virtue and good deeds: the _Sovereign_ is he who, one of an order whose
members are all Sovereigns, is Supreme only because the law and
constitutions are so, which he administers, and by which he, like every
other brother, is governed. The titles, _Puissant_, _Potent_, _Wise_,
and _Venerable_, indicate that power of Virtue, Intelligence, and
Wisdom, which those ought to strive to attain who are placed in high
office by the suffrages of their brethren: and all our other titles and
designations have an esoteric meaning, consistent with modesty and
equality, and which those who receive them should fully understand. As
Master of a Lodge it is your duty to instruct your Brethren that they
are all so many constant lessons, teaching the lofty qualifications
which are required of those who claim them, and not merely idle gewgaws
worn in ridiculous imitation of the times when the Nobles and Priests
were masters and the people slaves: and that, in all true Masonry, the
Knight, the Pontiff, the Prince, and the Sovereign are but the first
among their equals: and the cordon, the clothing, and the jewel but
symbols and emblems of the virtues required of all good Masons.
The Mason kneels, no longer to present his petition for admittance or to
receive the answer, no longer to a man as his superior, who is but his
brother, but to his God; to whom he appeals for the rectitude of his
intentions, and whose aid he asks to enable him to keep his vows. No one
is degraded by bending his knee to God at the altar, or to receive the
honor of Knighthood as Bayard and Du Guesclin knelt. To kneel for other
purposes, Masonry does not require. God gave to man a head to be borne
erect, a port upright and majestic. We assemble in our Temples to
cherish and inculcate sentiments that conform to that loftiness of
bearing which the just and upright man is entitled to maintain, and we
do not require those who desire to be admitted among us, ignominiously
to bow the head. We respect man, because we respect ourselves that he
may conceive a lofty idea of his dignity as a human being free and
independent. If modesty is a virtue, humility and obsequiousness to man
are base: for there is a noble pride which is the most real and solid
basis of virtue. Man should humble himself before the Infinite God; but
not before his erring and imperfect brother.
As Master of a Lodge, you will therefore be exceedingly careful that no
Candidate, in any Degree, be required to submit to any degradation
whatever; as has been too much the custom in some of the Degrees: and
take it as a certain and inflexible rule, to which there is _no_
exception, that real Masonry requires of no man anything to which a
Knight and Gentleman cannot honorably, and without feeling outraged or
humiliated submit.
The Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States
at length undertook the indispensable and long-delayed task of revising
and reforming the work and rituals of the thirty Degrees under its
jurisdiction. Retaining the essentials of the Degrees and all the means
by which the members recognize one another, it has sought out and
developed the leading idea of each Degree, rejected the puerilities and
absurdities with which many of them were disfigured, and made of them a
connected system of moral, religious, and philosophical instruction.
Sectarian of no creed, it has yet thought it not improper to use the old
allegories, based on occurrences detailed in the Hebrew and Christian
books, and drawn from the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt, Persia, Greece,
India, the Druids and the Essenes, as vehicles to communicate the Great
Masonic Truths; as it has used the legends of the Crusades, and the
ceremonies of the orders of Knighthood.
It no longer inculcates a criminal and wicked vengeance. It has not
allowed Masonry to play the assassin: to avenge the death either of
Hiram, of Charles the 1st, or of Jacques De Molay and the Templars. The
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry has now become, what
Masonry at first was meant to be, a Teacher of Great Truths, inspired by
an upright and enlightened reason, a firm and constant wisdom, and an
affectionate and liberal philanthropy.
It is no longer a system, over the composition and arrangement of the
different parts of which, want of reflection, chance, ignorance, and
perhaps motives still more ignoble presided; a system unsuited to our
habits, our manners, our ideas, or the world-wide philanthropy and
universal toleration of Masonry; or to bodies small in number, whose
revenues should be devoted to the relief of the unfortunate, and not to
empty show; no longer a heterogeneous aggregate of Degrees, shocking by
its anachronisms and contradictions, powerless to disseminate light,
information, and moral and philosophical ideas.
As Master, you will teach those who are under you, and to whom you will
owe your office, that the decorations of many of the Degrees are to be
dispensed with, whenever the expense would interfere with the duties of
charity, relief, and benevolence; and to be indulged in only by wealthy
bodies that will thereby do no wrong to those entitled to their
assistance. The essentials of all the Degrees may be procured at slight
expense; and it is at the option of every Brother to procure or not to
procure, as he pleases, the dress, decorations, and jewels of any Degree
other than the 14th, 18th, 30th, and 32d.
We teach the truth of none of the legends we recite. They are to us but
parables and allegories, involving and enveloping Masonic instruction;
and vehicles of useful and interesting information. They represent the
different phases of the human mind, its efforts and struggles to
comprehend nature, God, the government of the Universe, the permitted
existence of sorrow and evil. To teach us wisdom, and the folly of
endeavoring to explain to ourselves that which we are not capable of
understanding, we reproduce the speculations of the Philosophers, the
Kabalists, the Mystagogues and the Gnostics. Every one being at liberty
to apply our symbols and emblems as he thinks most consistent with truth
and reason and with his own faith, we give them such an interpretation
only as may be accepted by all. Our Degrees may be conferred in France
or Turkey, at Pekin, Ispahàn, Rome, or Geneva, in the city of Penn or in
Catholic Louisiana, upon the subject of an absolute government or the
citizen of a Free State, upon Sectarian or Theist. To honor the Deity,
to regard all men as our Brethren, as children, equally dear to Him, of
the Supreme Creator of the Universe, and to make himself useful to
society and himself by his labor, are its teachings to its Initiates in
all the Degrees.
Preacher of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, it desires them to be
attained by making men fit to receive them, and by the moral power of an
intelligent and enlightened People. It lays no plots and conspiracies.
It hatches no premature revolutions; it encourages no people to revolt
against the constituted authorities; but recognizing the great truth
that freedom follows fitness for freedom as the corollary follows the
axiom, it strives to _prepare_ men to govern themselves.
Where domestic slavery exists, it teaches the master humanity and the
alleviation of the condition of his slave, and moderate correction and
gentle discipline; as it teaches them to the master of the apprentice:
and as it teaches to the employers of other men, in mines,
manufactories, and workshops, consideration and humanity for those who
depend upon their labor for their bread, and to whom want of employment
is starvation, and overwork is fever, consumption, and death.
As Master of a Lodge, you are to inculcate these duties on your
brethren. Teach the employed to be honest, punctual, and faithful as
well as respectful and obedient to all proper orders: but also teach the
employer that every man or woman who desires to work, has a right to
have work to do; and that they, and those who from sickness or
feebleness, loss of limb or of bodily vigor, old age or infancy, are not
able to work, have a right to be fed, clothed, and sheltered from the
inclement elements: that he commits an awful sin against Masonry and in
the sight of God, if he closes his workshops or factories, or ceases to
work his mines, when they do not yield him what he regards as sufficient
profit, and so dismisses his workmen and workwomen to starve; or when he
reduces the wages of man or woman to so low a standard that they and
their families cannot be clothed and fed and comfortably housed; or by
overwork must give him their blood and life in exchange for the pittance
of their wages: and that his duty as a Mason and Brother peremptorily
requires him to continue to employ those who else will be pinched with
hunger and cold, or resort to theft and vice: and to pay them fair
wages, though it may reduce or annul his profits or even eat into his
capital; for God hath but loaned him his wealth, and made him His
almoner and agent to invest it.
Except, as mere symbols of the moral virtues and intellectual qualities,
the tools and implements of Masonry belong exclusively to the first
three Degrees. They also, however, serve to remind the Mason who has
advanced further, that his new rank is based upon the humble labors of
the symbolic Degrees, as they are improperly termed, inasmuch as all the
Degrees are symbolic.
Thus the Initiates are inspired with a just idea of Masonry, to wit,
that it is essentially WORK; both teaching and practising LABOR; and
that it is altogether emblematic. Three kinds of work are necessary to
the preservation and protection of man and society: manual labor,
specially belonging to the three blue Degrees; labor in arms, symbolized
by the Knightly or chivalric Degrees; and intellectual labor, belonging
particularly to the Philosophical Degrees.
We have preserved and multiplied such emblems as have a true and
profound meaning. We reject many of the old and senseless explanations.
We have not reduced Masonry to a cold metaphysics that exiles everything
belonging to the domain of the imagination. The ignorant, and those
_half_-wise, in reality, but _over_-wise in their own conceit, may
assail our symbols with sarcasms; but they are nevertheless ingenious
veils that cover the Truth, respected by all who know the means by which
the heart of man is reached and his feelings enlisted. The Great
Moralists often had recourse to allegories, in order to instruct men
without repelling them. But we have been careful not to allow our
emblems to be too obscure, so as to require far-fetched and forced
interpretations. In our days, and in the enlightened land in which we
live, we do not need to wrap ourselves in veils so strange and
impenetrable, as to prevent or hinder instruction instead of furthering
it; or to induce the suspicion that we have concealed meanings which we
communicate only to the most reliable adepts, because they are contrary
to good order or the well-being of society.
The Duties of the Class of _Instructors_, that is, the Masons of the
Degrees from the 4th to the 8th, inclusive, are, particularly, to
perfect the younger Masons in the words, signs and tokens and other work
of the Degrees they have received; to explain to them the meaning of the
different emblems, and to expound the moral instruction which they
convey. And upon their report of proficiency alone can their pupils be
allowed to advance and receive an increase of wages.