THE BUILDER JUNE 1926

The Form of the Lodge

By BROS. A. L. KRESS AND R. J. MEEKREN


BEFORE the material that has been collected in the two preceding
installments of this article can be usefully discussed, and
incidentally it must be noted that the collection is representative
rather than exhaustive, it is necessary to lay down some principles
by which the argument may be profitably directed. It may be said,
and justly, that many of the various facts to which attention has
been drawn are incongruous with each other, and have not the least
connection with Freemasonry. It is therefore necessary to have a
clear understanding of the scope of the comparative method of
interpretation in such cases as the one before us. When we find a
custom or institution existing in different places and at different
times there are several possibilities, and it will depend entirely
upon other and additional circumstances which should be chosen as
being the most probable. The first is that one is the original and
the others are derived from it. When travelers first began to bring
back accounts that barbarous savage races all over the world had
stories of a great flood that once destroyed most of the human
race, it was not naturally supposed that these were corrupted echos
of the Biblical deluge and Noah's Ark which had been derived from
the teaching of Christian missionaries. When later it was found
that the practice of circumcision was not peculiar to the Jews but
had been and was still practiced by many different races it was
again interpreted as a borrowing from old Hebrew customs. The
analogies that are so striking between certain sacramental rites
found by the Spanish in Mexico, and the ceremonies of later
Buddhism in Japan, to the Christian Eucharist, especially in the
form known as the Mass, naturally led to the theological
interpretation that these peoples had been taught by the devil
impious mockeries of the Christian mysteries, on exactly the same
lines as the early Fathers of the Church explained the many
resemblances that existed between the Old Testament sacrificial
ritual and that of the heathen temples of their own day. Such
explanations are obvious and most natural, the major premise of the
argument, however, is implicit and not openly stated--it is that
our own tradition, the one we were taught as children--must be
right, must be the original, and the others merely spurious
imitations or faulty derivations. Further research, and mature
consideration shows that such an explanation is seldom adequate.
Really we must in most cases regard all such traditions, if
actually related, as being derived from a common primitive source.
But they may not be related, they may have had independent origins,
and the resemblance may be merely a coincidence. But such a
coincidence again may be merely fortuitous and accidental, or it
may be due to the natural reaction of the human mind to a similar
act of exterior circumstances. As for example, the fire-drill or
the bow and arrow might have been invented once, and afterwards
borrowed by other people till their use had spread all over the
world. Or it is equally possible that both were reinvented many
times. The history of modern industrial discoveries is proof
positive of the latter possibility. Where we find similar arts or
institutions existing among contiguous peoples, as for example the
methods of weaving and basket making among different tribes of
American Indians, or the existence of peculiar social
organizations, such as the many secret societies found among them,
it is most probable, and in many cases certain, that organizations
and technical methods were freely borrowed and exchanged between
the social groups.

But actual proximity is not the only case where borrowing is
possible. A belief, a myth, a ritual or an art may be carried from
one place to another by a handful of individuals, or even by only
one. A marooned sailor in the South Seas could change the social
order and religion of a whole population, as actually happened in
the case of the Pitcairn Islanders. The crew of a Chinese junk
blown across the Pacific eight or nine hundred years ago could have
conceivably altered the whole culture of the indigenous peoples of
South America. Before we can come to a conclusion in any given case
all the factors have to be weighed. We must consider what
opportunity there has been, if any, for transmission; and then, is
it the kind of thing that is easily borrowed or not; but the very
first consideration of all is whether or no the two things are
identical. For example, there is a kind of fly that closely
resembles a wasp, but biologically the diptera are very different
from the hymenoptera, to which orders the two creatures
respectively belong. Or, to come nearer to our subject a certain
figure in an old English dance, the "Sir Roger de Coverley," which
went out of fashion with the wearing of swords, is very similar to
a ceremony in the initiation ritual of the Thian Ti Hwui or "Heaven
and Earth League" of China, in which the candidates are made to
pass under an arch of swords; while in Australia we learn of a
ceremony in which two rows of men stand on each side of the
representation of a mythological character crudely modeled in earth
or sand over which they form an arch with their boomerangs. Were
one inclined to levity one might even compare the "Roger de
Coverley" figure in which the ladies passed in single file under
the crossed swords of their gallants with another Australian
ceremony, part of the funeral ritual among the Warramunga tribe,
where a number of men stand astride of a shallow trench down which
the female mourners crawl on hands and knees !

For example, the accompanying illustration might appear to be, or
to represent an enclosure, such as those that have been instanced
earlier in this article. It is drawn upon the ground in a manner
somewhat similar to the sand paintings of the Indian tribes of the
American Southwest. Actually it is a conventional, or rather a
diagrammatic, representation of an incident in one of the myths of
an Australian tribe. The six circles are the six Mungmunga women
who were sent to the east by an ancestral snake. After a while they
got very tired and sat down to rest. The circles represent their
bodies and the black lines their legs. The Hopi Mosaic on the other
hand does appear to repreient the earth, or so much of it as the
tribe is interested in. There are the four cardinal points of the
compass, the clouds dropping rain, and the flowers blooming in
their garden fields, while the ceremonies performed in connection
with it are intended to magically increase the fertility of their
cultivated land, and to ensure the crops on which the tribe
depends.

COMPARATIVE METHOD IN MASONIC RESEARCH

Thus when we come to use the comparative method in our own special
field of research we have always to bear in mind that Freemasonry,
meaning by the term the institution as it now exists in different
parts of the world, had its origin in the British Isles. Even if it
be supposed that the French Compagnonnage and the German
Steinmetzen were parallel institutions, or sprang with it from a
common primitive original, yet it is certain that neither of them
is in the same line of descent as our Freemasonry. It is even
possible to admit for the sake of argument that British Operative
Masonry came from Germany or France in the first place, yet the
fact remains that the institution whose primitive usages we are
investigating first comes into the light of history in Great
Britain and Ireland. What then is the purpose of bringing material
from the endi of the earth to compare with it? Exactly the sanle
objection was raised by classical scholars, when this method was
first introduced as a means of investigation into the origins of
myths and religious rites. They complained, and not unnaturally,
that what Negroes and South Sea Islanders did and believed had
nothing whatever to do with the opinions and customs of the Greeks
and Romans. Nevertheless the comparative method won its way. It did
not, and could not profess to answer, by itself, questions of
origin, but it did and does throw light on meaning, modes of
transmission and lines of evolution. Its fundamental postulate is
that men do not do things without some reason, and that in spite of
great differences in culture, the human mind on the average reacts
to a given situation in very much the same way. Specifically then
in our own case, we may use material drawn from the folklore,
traditions and customs of the British Isles to compare with the
primitive rites and observances of Freemasonry, we can reinforce
them with analogous facts from the rest of Europe, and we may use
facts from sources further afield to amplify and explain what we
already have. As an example makes a general statement clearer, let
us take the rite of circumambulation, which appears to have been an
original part of the Masonic ritual. We find that it was generally
and widely spread, especially among the Celtic centers of
population, though it is by no means confined to such areas. From
Britain we go to Europe and find it there also. From Europe we go
to Asia, where it again confronts us, especially in India and
Thibet. When also we discover that it is frequently connected with
a certain number of ritual steps, the conclusion that we have here
a real connection is greatly reinforced. But even so we must beware
of seeing Freemasonry wherever we find circumambulation, ritual
steps and turning to the four cardinal points; for it must always
be remembered that Freemasonry is not the genus, but the species,
or even only a variety of the species. We may interpret the Masonic
usage in the light of the rest of the material put not vice versa.

On the other hand to compare a scene depicted in an Indian
manuscript from South America with the ceremonies of the Order of
Rose Croix (as has been done) seems, to say the least, rather
futile. The Rose Croix Degree, the seventh of the French Rite and
eighteenth of the A. & A. S. R., was devised and invented about a
hundred and fifty years ago. But even if it was based on certain
points in primitive (that is pre-Grand Lodge) Masonry, and this
would be no more than a guess in our present state of knowledge,
what connection could be plausibly suggested between South America
and Great Britain; for even the wildest visionary could hardly
suppose that Elizabethan voyagers and adventurers brought the rites
home with them, as Pythagoras is said to have taken Egyptian
mysteries to Samos.

BIOLOGICAL EXAMPLES

There is another point that it may be as well to consider before
returning to the discussion of the material before us, and that is
to examine more particularly just what kind of results we may
reasonably expect to obtain by the use of the comparative method.
To put the matter briefly, the wider the field from which the data
is gathered the more general the conclusions drawn from it. To take
another biological example; from a collection of different
varieties of insects light may be obtained on the way this class of
organism has solved the fundamental problems of life, nutrition,
self preservation and reproduction. The comparative anatomy of say
mammals, birds, reptiles and fishes will on the other hand give us
an idea of the development of vertebrate animals and the
modifications of their limbs to adapt them for life in the
particular element in which they live. In dealing with social
phenomena we find a principle of continuity with adaptation
remarkably analogous to that revealed in biology. Customs and
usages are transmitted from generation to generation, but gradually
changed to fit in with new circumstances. Just as the tail which is
the chief organ or locomotion with the fishes tends to become a
mere appendage with other vertebrates; and though birds have
rediscovered its importance, and dogs seem also to have made it a
means of communication, the higher anthropoids and man have lost it
altogether, except for an atrophied vestige only to be discovered
by dissection. Or again the gill opening of the fish has been
transformed into the ear among mammals, as the swimbladder that
originally had the same function as the ballast tanks of a
submarine have become the lungs of air-breathing vertebrates. In
quite similar manner are social customs transformed, either a new
use is found for them, or they become mere survivals gradually
dwindling to a mere shadow of what they once were. Freemasonry is
itself an example of this. An organization of the operatives of a
certain trade it was gradually decaying in a changed social
environment in which no practical reason for its existence
remained. But it had another aspect which proved capable of
expansion and which filled a human need, and so within recent times
it has passed through the stages of survival and revival into the
widespread organization we know today.

But if it has had one such change within our certain knowledge, we
may also suspect it has had previous developments of which no
definite records remain. It appears first in history as a survival
from the Mediaeval period. But that period was not one of
stagnation, it was one of vigorous life and constant change. It was
no more a period in which such ideas and usages as we are
considering could have spontaneously arisen than is our own. They
survived through it, as they have survived in many instances to our
own times, but to find the stage at which they naturally arose we
must go very low down in the level of culture, lower very likely
than any existing races or tribes of mankind. It is for this reason
that the comparative method is justified. By it we are enabled to
reconstruct the original meaning of surviving usages in the same
way as comparative anatomy clears up the origin of the troublesome
vermiform appendix in the human economy by relating it to the
secondary stomach of ruminating animals. It does not mean that our
ancestors were once cows, any more than that Free nasonry is in the
same line of descent as some West African secret society because of
some analogous piece of ritual.

With this explanation of the kind of questions we may legitimately
hope in some measure to answer in this way we may return to our
subject. One thing seems to have emerged quite clearly in the
discussion, and that is that the "lodge" was originally a sacred
enclosure--in a primitive sense "holy ground." It does not
necessarily follow that the name by which our predecessors called
it was old--that was quite possibly comparatively late, but the
thing itself did not spontaneously arise in a Mediaeval craft
fraternity, nor is it at all likely that it was borrowed or adopted
from folk customs surviving in the community at large; it was most
probably inherited. And there was a peculiar fitness in the usage
in connection with an organization of builders, as may become
clearer in the sequel.

PRIMARY IDEA OF ENCLOSURE

The idea of an enclosure is so practical and commonplace that it is
not easy for us to see any ritual significance in it at all. We
enclose land for individual use either by fences, as in fields and
gardens, to keep out intruders, or by walls and roofs to afford us
sheltered places to work and eat and sleep. But obvious as such a
thing appears, there was a time when it was not done, when the idea
was new. Caves and natural rock shelters seem to have been the
earliest fixed dwellings of man, and the first houses may have been
conceived as artificial caves. At least pre-historic man in Europe
dug holes in the ground which he roofed over, and a similar though
more developed form of this method of construction was found in
Alaska and among the Digger Indians of California. It is possible,
however, that earlier even than this the idea of an enclosure grew
up out of the undefined area of danger about some primitive
sanctity. In classical times the Greek and Roman felt it unwise to
approach the place where lightning had struck. Graves were always
regarded as at least uncanny, and in many special cases as
positively unsafe to approach. But on a spot that is avoided
vegetation, trees and undergrowth will very soon spring up which
eventually conceals the taboo spot itself from view. This could
very easily have been a factor in developing the idea of a barrier
separating the sacred from the profane. It is perhaps probable, it
certainly would seem most natural, that this conception of
enclosures and the sanctity and magical nature of their boundaries,
including terminii and landmarks, would arise with the change from
nomadic hunting and food-gathering to settled agriculture. The
later form of nomadic life, that of such peoples as the Tartars,
the ancient Scythians and the modern Arabs is not primitive. It is
a relatively high form of culture. Such peoples depend upon
domesticated animals and they move from place to place to find
pasture for their flocks and herds. The primitive nomad was a
hunter and a: collector of wild fruits and edible roots. Such a
state is represented by the natives of Australia, the Esquimaux and
various odds and ends of races usually living in inaccessible
places, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the natives of the Andaman
Islands and the dwarf races of central Africa.

Among the Australians we find that enclosures are made for ritual
purposes, generally circular. They appear to be made usually by
digging a shallow ditch the earth from which makes a low ridge or
mound. Such enclosures are so sacred that no uninitiated person may
come anywhere near them much less see them. But with agriculture
would come a change in attitude, not an altogether new one perhaps,
but more developed in certain directions. The succession of the
seasons, the weather, wind, rain, thunderstorms, the four quarters
of the heavens, the waxing and waning of the moon, the movement of
the sun, and the apparent sequences between them, and the
connection of all with the springing and growth of vegetation. The
cultivation of a piece of land in itself marks it off, but the
delimitation is naturally emphasized in one way or another. We
would think first of a material barrier, a fence or a hedge, but
with primitive men apparently a magical one came first. To this day
fire is carried round the sown fields in various parts of the
world, and in India a cotton thread forms an efflcient barrier
against the malicious and evil powers which would make the ground
infertile, or would occultly steal away the crop.

With agriculture men perforce come to have more permanent
dwellings, and being more permanent they become more substantial.
Attention is given to the earth itself, where the hunting tribes
merely took it for granted. The earth becomes the great mother, lt
becomes itself a sanctity that cannot be safely interfered with
without preparatory ritual; and such ritual naturally takes on
common features and is worked out on much the same principles
whether land is to be taken for a field or garden, or as the site
for a village or a house, or for the digging of a well.

From observances carried out with the doing of the thing itself
there follows a secondary stage where it is pre-done as a
preparation. Seed has to be sown in the fields but first it is
planted in pots or baskets and forced into rapid growth, as in the
classic gardens of Adonis made by the Syrian women. But the Hopi
Indians sprout beans and corn and other vegetables in their Kivas
as a preliminary to their spring ceremonies. The sacred diagrams or
sand mosaics used in these obviously represent the earth--not the
whole world sn much, as the part of it on which their interest
centers, their fields. But with it are represented the clouds,
rain, lightning, the cardinal points, and last the growing and
blooming vegetation. It is noteworthy that the Navajoes, who use
similar sand pictures, enclose them in a circle, they being
dwellers in tepees, or hogans, while the Hopis who have stone
houses, roofed with beams, make their diagrams square or oblong.

SANCTITY AND CONSECRATION

At the first an object with magical potency does not need any
process of the nature of consecration, for to the primitive mind it
has this power or sanctity by virtue of its existence, of its being
what it is. The making of a fetish object, the drawing of a sacred
diagram is at the same time its consecration and dedication. That
something more needs to be done for its efficacy beyond the making
of it results from a more advanced line of thought where the
mysterious power is supposed to flow from spiritual personalities
and not to be in the visible and tangible objects as part of their
own proper nature. The primitive rites survive in the higher cults
with a new interpretation and with added complexities of observance
based on the newer theories, yet they remain sufficiently
recognizable. To the bare enclosure are added hieroglyphic designs,
originally, as in the Hopi and Navajo pictures, representing the
things on which their interest is centered, and on which their life
depends. The shape may become symbolic, its orientation becomes
important, it may be necessary to have openings to let in the
beneficent influnces of the four quarters--as in the sacred
Medawiwin lodges. When entrances or gateways are made there follows
in natural sequence the need for guardians, watchers of the
threshold, like the cherubim of the Hebrews and the winged bulls of
Mesopotamia or Janus of the Romans. The crosses, pentacles and
other cabbalistic characters and signatures drawn in his magic
circle by the Mediaeval magician had the same effect. Primitively
the guardians were perhaps actual participants in the ritual
disguised in some symbolic dress, if we may judge from the rites of
existing savages.

We have seen that the sacred enclosure in its origin did not
represent the world, but only so much of the earth as the men
making it were at the moment especially concerned with or
interested in. But any bit of the earth's surface has the sky
overhead, has the points of the compass before and behind and on
the right and the left of it. And once it is taken as
representative of a larger tract there is nothing to prevent the
expansion of the meaning of the symbol to take in all the earth the
group concerned knows about. It can easily become, in short, to be
a representation of the earth, or the world as known to them. In
this regard the curious persistence right up till almost the modern
period of symbolic maps or diagrammatic charts of the world is
perhaps significant. The Mediaeval geographor represented the earth
as enclosed in a circle and divided by a tau cross into three
parts. The boundary was the ocean, the arms of the cross were
formed by the Mediterranean Sea and two great rivers, of which the
Nile was usually taken to be one, and the Tanais, now known as the
Don in Russia, as the other. In these T-O maps, as they are called,
the East is placed at the top, while the North and South are to the
left and right respectively. This conception so impressed itself on
the minds of Mediaeval map-makers that they frequently forced
smaller areas into the same schematic form, as in the map of
Jerusalem that is here reproduced. This form of map is also
undoubtedly connected with one of the emblems of royalty, the orb
that went with the sceptre, and is so frequently shown in pictures
and statues of kings and queens. It is a golden or gilt ball, with
bands upon it recalling by their position the Tau of the maps, in
addition to which it is crowned as a rule by a small Greek or
maltese cross. This orb was inherited from the Roman Emperors, and
was originally one of the attributes of Zeus himself. The cross
appears to have been a Christian addition.

CIRCUMAMBULATION IN CORONATION CEREMONIES

Coronation ceremonies were usually performed at some special sacred
place. In later times in certain cathedrals, but earlier out of
doors. The Kings of England are still crowned sitting upon an
ancient sacred stone, though it has been built into and forms the
seat of a massive oak chair. But at Kingston-onThames, near London,
is still preserved in the market place a conical stone on which the
Saxon Kings were crowned centuries ago. The English sovereigns are
proclaimed four times towards the four points of the compass. In
earlier rites Teutonic Kings were seated on a shield and borne on
the shoulders of four men were taken three times around the
assembly of the people. The Kings of Hungary after being crowned
rode to a certain mound or tumulus up which they rode alone, the
people standing all around. At the top the king turned his horse in
succession to the four cardinal points and made three thrusts with
his sword into the air towards each. In Asia a newly-crowned
monarch took three steps to each of the four points, with the same
underlying idea, the same that is embodied in the myth of Vishnu,
when in three strides he took possession of the earth, the
underworld and the heavens. It is at least a curious parallel that
according to the Mason's Confession of 1755 the apprentice when
entered to the lodge had to take three steps over three chalk lines
drawn with chalk upon the floor, giving while so doing a formal
greeting to those assembled. Further instances of ritual steps in
connection with an enclosure or diagram upon the ground will be
given next month.

NOTES

For circumambulation and ritual steps the Buddhist Prayer Wheel
should be consulted if possible. It is unfortunately very difficult
to procure. A. B. Cook's Zeus has a good deal of material on the
subject.

QUESTlONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Is the collection of ritual forms and ceremonies from among
savages, folklore survivals and heathen religions of any assistance
in Masonic research?

2. If so, does it help us to understand our own customs better, or
does it principally throw light on their origin?

3. What is the underlying conception of consecration? How did it
arise in the development of human culture?

4. Is there any fundamental analogy between the dedication of a
building, the ordination or consecration of a priest and the
coronation of a king?

5. Why should old maps have shown the east at the top, and why do
we usually put the north at the top in our maps and plans ?

6. Is there any connection between the plan of the lodge regarded
as the symbolical representation of the world and the diagrammatic
maps of the Middle Ages?
