QUESTIONS ON "THE LOST WORD"

What is the master symbol of Blue Lodge symbolism? Why should we be
cautious in our endeavours to ascertain the origins of the
symbolism of the Lost Word?

How were brethren in the early days of Masonry sometimes "made
Masons"? Have our researchers yet been able to discover what the
"Lost Word" was? What would those who hold to the theory that the
Royal Arch Word is the "Lost Word" lead us to believe? Is there any
evidence to prove beyond a doubt that this word was really the
"Lost Word"?

Do you agree with Brother Haywood that the "Lost Word" was never a
component part of the Blue Lodge work which was later taken away
from the Blue Lodge and transplanted into the Royal Arch degree? If
so, what are your grounds for so agreeing? If not what are your
reasons for disagreeing with him?

What is the Legend of the Tetragrammaton? What was the custom among
the Jewish people relative to pronouncing the name of Deity? How
was the use of the name restricted? What finally became the penalty
inflicted upon one who spoke the name aloud? What further
restrictions were placed upon the use of the name? How was the name
spelled?

When and in what manner did the true pronunciation of the name
became wholly lost? What did this result in after the Exile was
ended? What did the priests and scribes have left upon which to
base their search? What were the vowels of the word? 

Of what did the Tetragrammaton become the centre, and how did the
search for the word spread?

Did the form of the legend always remain the same? What various
forms did it take?

Has the symbolic idea centred in the search for the "Lost Word"
been confined to Masonry alone? Do we find it in modern literature?


SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES

THE BUILDER:
Vol I. - "The Fourth Degree," by Bro. W.F. Kuhn, p. 44.
Vol II.- "Some Deeper Aspects of Masonic Symbolism," by Bro. A.E.
Waite, p.175; "The Lost Word," by Bro.W.F. Kuhn, p. 327,
Vol.III. - "The Lodge," by Bro. H.W. Ticknor, p. 198; "The Lost
Word," Question Box Department, p. 189.
Vol.IV. -  "The Symbolism of the Master Mason Degree - The Lost
Word," by Bro. Oliver Day Street, p. 322.
Vol. V. "The Legendary Origin of Freemasonry," by Bro.Dudley
Wright, p. 297; "What a Master Mason Ought to Know," by Bro. Hal
Riviere, p. 130.

Mackey's Encyclopedia:

Incommunicable, p. 349; Ineffable Name, p. 351; Tetragrammaton, p.
781; Twelve-Lettered Name, p. 809; Unutterable Name, p. 817

THIRD STEPS
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA

PART III - THE LOST WORD

WE COME now to the crux and the climax of Blue Lodge symbolism, the
master symbol by means of which all other symbols have their
meaning.  Well will it be for us walk warily here, not only because
the origins of the symbolism of the Lost Word are bound up with an
ancient and tangled tradition; not only because it has been so
often prostituted to the level of magic and superstition, even in
recent times; but also because it is the embodiment of one of those
ideas so high and so deep that they contain whole systems of
philosophy and theology within them.  It is like the "flower in the
crannied wall" of Tennyson's poem; if we could understand it, "root
and all, and all in all," we would know "what God and man is."

Much has been written about the "Mason's word" as employed in old
days, when brethren were sometimes "made Mason" by having that
secret term entrusted to them; research has failed to show what
this word was though some scholars believe it to have been that
sovereign name which stands at the centre of the Holy Royal Arch. 
Some who hold to this last named theory would have us believe that
this transfer of the word from the Blue Lodge to the Royal Arch
degree was so disastrous to the symbolic structure of the Blue
Lodge that, to patch up the damage, a substitute word was devised
to take its place until the candidate passed on to the higher
grade.  But as there is little or no evidence to prove that the
great word of the Royal Arch is the same as the "Mason's Word" of
the old lodges that theory must be left suspended in the mid-air of
conjecture.

II

For my own part - and I can speak here for no other - I can not
believe that the Blue Lodge system was ever rifled of its chiefest
treasure to grace the forehead of a "higher" grade nor can I see
why we should think that the Third degree, just as it is, has lost
the one key to its mysteries.  The search for a lost word is not
the search for a mere vocable of a few letters which one might
write down on a piece of paper, it is the seeking for a truth, nay,
a set of truths, a secret of life, and that secret truth is so
clearly set forth in the Hiram Abiff drama that one is led to
wonder why anybody should suppose that it had ever been lost.  "The
Lost Word" does not refer, so it seems to me, to any term once in
possession of the Third degree and accidentally lost, but rather it
denotes the ancient Tetragrammaton, or "four-lettered name," for
which search has been made these two and a half millenniums.

According to a very old tradition (how much actual history ma be in
it we can not know) the Legend of the Tetragrammaton goes back to
ancient Israel as far as the time of the Exile.  Like all people of
that day the Jews saw in a person's name, not a mere handy cognomen
whereby a man might be addressed, but a kind of sign standing for
the personality of the one who bore it.  Jacob was Jacob because he
actually had been a "supplanter," as that name means; and he later
became Israel because he was a "prince of God." Jacob's name was a
revelation of bis character.  So was it with all names.  Therefore
was it that the ancients held proper names in a reverence difficult
for us to understand, as is hinted in an old Chaldean oracle:

"Never change native names;
For there are names in every nation, God-given, 
Of unexplained power in the Mysteries."

Bearing this in mind we can understand why the Jews throw, about
the name of Deity the wrappings of secrecy and sanctity.  At first,
after the dread secret had been imparted to Moses, the people
pronounced the name in whispers or not at all.  They were bidden
never to use it except on the most solemn occasions as witness the
Third Commandment which reads, when literally translated, "Thou
shalt not utter the name of thy God, idly." As time went on the
priests forbade them to do more than hint at it, one of the
priestly commands in Leviticus reading, "He that pronounceth the
Name of the Lord distinctly, shall be put to death" (Ch. 24, v.
16).  At last, only the High Priest was permitted to utter the Name
at all, and then on some great occasion, such as the Day of
Atonement.  At the same time, it must be remembered, the Jews were
using no vowels in their writing; for some strange reason only
consonants were ever written or printed; therefore only the four
consonants, JHWH, were ever seen.

III

When the Jews were taken into Exile, all trace of the true
pronunciation was lost, either because the High Priest was killed
before he could impart it, or died in Babylonia before a successor
entitled to the secret could be found.  Consequently, the Exile was
no sooner ended than priests and scribes began their search for the
Lost Name.  The four consonants only did they have; what the vowels
were nobody could learn, nor has anybody since discovered.

IV

This Tetragrammaton became a storm centre of theology and around it
a great mass of symbolism gradually accumulated.  So deeply did it
sink into the imagination of Israel that the later Jewish
theosophists who built up the speculative system which we call the
Kabbala made it the very core of their teaching; and through the
Kabbala, the literature of which was so popular even so late as
Reformation times, the legend of the Lost Name made its way into
the thought and literature of medieval Europe.
 But the form of the legend did not always remain the same; "now it
is a despoiled sanctuary; now a sacramental mystery; now the
abandonment of a great military and religious order; now the
age-long frustration of the greatest building plan which was ever
conceived; now the lost word of Kabbalism; now the vacancy of the
most holy of all sanctuaries." Whatever the disguise the quest was
always the same, a search for something strangely precious which
men believe had been lost out of the world but might be found
again.

This wonderful symbolic idea still retains its power to cast a
spell over us, as witness its use by modern writers.  Eugene Sue
incorporated it in his haunted tale - "The Wandering Jew." Tennyson
wove it into his Arthur epic, where it has assumed the form of the
search for the Lost Grail, the cup used by the Lord at his Last
Supper.  Henry Van Dyke has embodied it in his book of stories,
"The Blue Flower," and Maurice Maeterlinck has woven about it a
strangely beautiful drama, "The Blue Bird."

Shall we not add to that list the drama of the Third degree?
Surely, "that which was lost" can refer to nothing else, as the
evidence, both internal and external, does so abundantly seem to
show.  If that indeed be the case how it does light up with
prophetic meaning the whole mystery of the Third Degree! for it
shows that the candidate is on no hunt for a mystic term to be used
like a magic spell, still less is it some mysterious individual
that he seeks.  That for which he really searches, is to discover
the Divine in himself and in the world.

Going out to find God we need not wonder when he finds no one word,
or one thing, to reward his labours; nor need we be disappointed if
he is "put off with a substitute," for though his search is not
fruitless it is not altogether successful, as is fitting when we
recall that the complete unveiling of God can not come to any one
man in any one lifetime.  That hope must ever remain an ideal to us
humans in the shadows of our earth life - a flying ideal, eluding
us while it beckons us, leading us over the hills of Time into the
tireless searchings of Eternity.

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