THE BUILDER JULY 1926

The Form of the Lodge
By BROS. A. L. KRESS AND R. J. MEEKREN
(Continued)

THE connection of the sacred enclosure or diagram with ritual steps
and dances is very close. Among some Australian tribes the boys to
be initiated are, as a preliminary ceremony, taken from the
assembled women and made to enter a circle drawn on the ground. The
women wail and lament ritually, for this means their sons are
definitely taken away from them. The Hopi children are taken on to
the sacred sand picture to receive the flogging which is an
important part of the initiation ritual. Also at one stage in the
ceremonies the "Chowilawu Katcina," masked, and in a symbolic
dress, dances round the border of the diagram.

Other parallel instances might be adduced. In a paper read before
the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, Bro. Sidney Klein mentions a curious
rite among the Spanish Gitanos or Gipsies,

. . . in which after drawing a small circle on the ground and
placing crossed sticks within it, one boy walked round on the
circle stamping his feet and reciting a doggerel, and a second boy
. . . had to follow keeping time and repeating each sentence
quickly after him. I do not remember the substance of the words
except that it was recounting a journey and the obstacles which
were met in the way, one of which I remember was getting over a 
river or sea. I have the impression that it was something after the
fashion of Pilgrim's Progress, and that the river or sea was the
finale referring to death.

He also adds that the grown-up people watched it, but without any
"applause or apparent interest in it," and that

It was not a game in the ordinary sense, as I heard it was to take
place several hours beforehand, and there was some question as to
whether I should be allowed to be there.

He also describes a form of oath among the Bedawin called "the
Yemein el Khet or 'oath of the cross lines.' This is never used
except on very important occasions." It is usually employed as what
in old English law would have been called an oath of compurgation,
where a person accused swears in the presence of his accuser that
he is innocent. Among the Arabs "the accuser draws on the sand with
his selchin or crooked knife a circle with many cross lines inside
it," both parties then put the right foot in the circle and the
accused repeats the words of the oath after the accuser. In some
places they stand with both feet in the circle

... but they all agree in never using this form of oath except at
a distance from their dwellings because it is believed that "the
magical nature of the oath might prove pernicious to the general
body of the Arabs were it to take place in their vicinity."


Another variant apparently is the drawing of only two cross lines
at right angles to each other. Bro. Klein remarks on the analogy
the first form has to the Masonic chequered pavement. In the sketch
given as illustration it might seem possible that there were seven
lines each way, and if so this diagram might throw some light on a
reference in Indian folklore to "seven cross lined labyrinthine
forts." A charm used at childbirth is the chakrava, which is "a
figure of seven cross lines drawn on a bell metal dish over which
the finest white dust has been spread." If the dish be a round one
(as is very probable, seeing that chakra signifies a wheel or
circle) the analogy would be still closer. It is connected with a
tale of how Krishna bribed a demon who was tormenting his sister by
reading the book Chakravrjaha, the seven chapters of which
explained the method of "conquering a labyrinthine fort with seven
cross-lined forts."

One branch of the Compagnonnage, that of the Cutlers, had first an
initiation in which the candidate, kneeling at an "altar," took an
oath on the Gospels followed by a kind of sacrament of bread and
salt and wine, and then:

Some time after they take him into the country in a lonely place to
instruct him in the rights [duties or laws, perhaps?] of the passed
Companion, they make him take off one shoe and make several turns
on a cloak that they have put on the ground in the form of a circle
[mis a terre en rond] in such fashion that the unshod foot shall be
on the cloak and the other on the ground.

THE SEPULCHRE AND THE ABYSS

A French writer, Henri Gray (who has recently discussed what is
known of this traditional organization in a series of articles in
L'Acacia), argues that this cloak was actually, or was used in
place of, a funeral pall, and that the space covered by it
represented a sepulchre, "the mystic sepulchre in which death and
renewal takes place," and he definitely equates it with the later
Masonic "floor carpets." As an interesting coincidence may be
quoted an account, not very complete, of the initiatory ceremonies
of a Sicilian Secret Society, said to be the original of the "Black
Hand" organizations, and analogous to the notorious Mafia. These
consisted partly of making the candidate shoot or stab a picture of
the virgin and Child, the significance of which is obviously a
renunciation of the Church and the Christian religion, just as the
Knights Templar were accused of doing by the analogous ceremony of
trampling and spitting on the cross. The medieval witches had to do
the same thing, and we may remember that the objection of the
doctors of the Sorbonne to the Compagnonnage was that it savored of
heresy, blasphemy and witchcraft. In this connection too it may be
noted that the witches of Roman Tuscany, according to Leland,
continue to speak of their system as the old religion, la vecchia
religione, up to the present day. After the Sicilian candidate had
renounced Christianity the members present formed a circle with
their arms interlocked and he was informed that this circle was an
abyss in which all that he heard said and saw done was to be
buried. In a second stage or grade a very primitive form of the
blood brotherhood rite was carried out, the novice being made to
suck blood from a wound in the wrist of one of those present,
chosen by lot. The abyss and the grave are conceptions not very far
asunder.

The Mandaeans, or St. John's Christians, of Mesopotamia pay great
attention to the points of the compass, especially the north, in
their rites, and in their theology (or mythology) the abyss is very
prominent and there seems little doubt that this belief is a
survival of the Babylonian Tiamat, the feminine personification of 
the primeval darkness and chaos -- the "deep" spoken of in the
second verse of the first chapter of Genesis parallel if not
derived conception. We may recall here the curious bronze plaque of
Babylonian origin which seems to represent the three divisions of
the world, the abyss, the earth and the heavens. And this has been
connected with the Buddhist wheel of life depicting the heavens,
the earth and the various hells to which ill-doers are condemned.

THE LABYRINTHS AND MAZES

Some years ago excavators in Crete laid bare the secret of the
famous labyrinth. It seems to have been a rectangular paved floor
in an open court in the Palace at Knossos. On two sides tiers of
stone benches served for spectators. It is supposed that on the
pavement mosaic "labyrinthine" patterns were laid out which served
as a track for the participants in a sacred dramatic dance, in
which, if it be safe to draw an inference from ancient works of
art, the death of the Minotaur was enacted; the part of the latter
being probably represented by a dancer with a bull mask and cloaked
in a bull's hide. Incidentally it may be remarked that originally
a character in the mummer's play was dressed in a skin or wore a
tail.

Such labyrinths, or mazes, as this of Crete are to be found all
over Europe. Their distribution is rather curious. In Southern
Europe existing specimens are not older than the middle ages, and
are nearly all to be found in churches, marked out in mosaic work
on the floor, often in a porch, or in the west end of the church.
The center is often named Jerusalem, and treading the maze is known
as "going to Jerusalem." Superstitious people regard following the
track as a meritorious work from the religious point of view; and
to do this is sometimes, it is said, laid on penitents as a mild
penance for venial faults. The myth has grown up that they were
introduced at the time of the Crusades to enable those who had
taken the vow to go to Jerusalem to get out of it easily; but in
view of the remains in the British Isles and northern Europe this
is hardly likely as an origin, though some such subterfuge may
account for the name given to the center. In England, North
Germany, Denmark and Scandinavia such mazes are hardly ever found
inside churches, though sometimes in or near churchyards. They are
generally outlined by small stones, or the involved path is cut in
the turf. They are the kind of thing that is ageless; there is
nothing in their appearance to show they were not made last year or
so, while in most cases they are undoubtedly pre-historic. Where
they consist of turf cutting there is usually a local custom of
assembling periodically to clean the pathway, just as the
pre-historic white horse cut on the hillside in Wiltshire, England,
is cleaned occasionally by the inhabitants of the valley. Most of
these mazes have come down, as has happened in other cases, to be
nothing but a child's game. And here may be mentioned the game that
goes in some places under the name of "hop scotch." For this an
oblong is marked out on the reground and divided crossways into
five compartments, the first four being divided by a line parallel
to the sides, while two diagonals form a St. Andrew's cross in the
fifth dividing it into four triangles. The game consists in a
number of more or less complicated dancing steps going and coming
over the lines. Both the forms of the diagram and the rules
followed vary a great deal. In one of these variant forms a
semicircle is added on to the compartment containing the cross in
which the word "heaven" is sometimes written. The other spaces are
numbered.

At Athens exploration of the ruins of the great theatre of Dionysus
have revealed a mosaic pavement with a swastika pattern on it
composed of two continuous interlaced bands crossing each other at
four different points. It was here that the great plays of the
Greek dramatists were enacted, and on this pavement that the chorus
performed its evolutions--movements that were derived directly from
older ritual dances in honor of the god. In Greek art the Cretan
labyrinth was often represented by patterns suggesting the
swastika, or else by the well-known ornamental design, the meander
or Greek fret, sometimes called the key pattern. The swastika at
Athens closely resembles this, and A. B. Cook in his monumental
work Zeus is inclined to equate it with the dance floor at Knossos.
The thread, which Ariadne gave to Theseus as a clue to find his way
out of the labyrinth according to the well-known story, recalls the
cotton string with which fields and the foundations of new
buildings in India are enclosed with a ritual circumambulation, and
as a coincidence it may remind us of the "tow line" of Operative
Scotch Masonry, and even our own cable tow, which is also in a
sense connected with circumambulations.

CIRCUMAMBULATION AND RITUAL STEPS

Turning movements, and in all their variety form a subject in
themselves, but they as well as ritual and symbolic steps seem to
be so closely connected With sacred enclosures that it is hardly
possible to avoid some reference to them. The encircling of
Buddhist shrines by devotees, of the Kaabah at Mecca by the Moslem
pilgrims, are too well known to need much mention. But hundreds of
similar observances have been collected from all over the world,
and are often to be suspected even where not explicitly described.
Even in the Christian Church the tradition has remained and
processions still go sunwise about the sacred edifice, or on
Rogation Day about the parish bounds. And this last is done with
the same intent that the Hindoo cultivators encircle their fields,
to pray for the fertility of the earth and bounteous crops.

THE PRAYER CARPET

The Mohammedan at the time of prayer lays down a special carpet or
mat, used for this purpose alone. At the foot of it he stands
facing Mecca, and goes through the ritual of his devotions, which
include a number of prostrations. These carpets are ornamented with
traditional patterns, varying according to the locality of
manufacture, but containing certain constant features. These are a
well marked border, within which is a smaller enclosed space
outlining a kind of arch, sometimes curved but more often angular.
This is called the Mihrab or niche. The name, and quite possibly
the design, is taken from the niche that marks the true direction
of the Kaabah which is to be found in every mosque.

In many of them a panel is placed above the spandrel [of the arch
or niche] and occasionally a second panel is placed beneath the
field. Above the niche of some Asia Minor and Caucasian' prayer
rugs is woven a small rhomboidal [diamond-shaped] figure where the
suppliant plants the pebble or bit of earth he has brought from
Mecca.

The same authority informs us that among the conventional designs
woven into the borders and panels of these carpets are the
following: the sun, the moon, the eight-rayed star (so frequently
found in Babylonian reliefs), the zigzag water symbol, and in
almost all "expressions of vegetable life" such as the sacred tree,
the vine, the lotus and so on.

Now Mahomet was obliged, by the force of older tradition among his
first followers, to adopt a number of primitive elements into his
system, the ancient sacred black stone built into the Kaabah was
one, the rock under the dome at Jerusalem has also found its way
into the circle of Mohammedan sanctities. Like other ethical
religions, Judaism, Buddhism (and Christianity is not wholly an
exception) Islam retains many earlier religious ideas, especially
in usages and ritual. The pagan Arabians not only worshipped sacred
stones and springs and wells, but they also observed the heavens,
and adored the celestial host. The Jews of the Dispersion
worshipped towards Jerusalem, for there was the temple, the
footstool of Jehovah. But those at Jerusalem, according to Ezekiel
[Ez. 8:10], worshipped with their backs to the temple, facing the
east. It is possible this was the primitive custom of all Semitic
races, and just as the later Monotheistic Jew retained the idea of
orientation, of turning to a certain direction, but changed the
object from the place of the sunrising to the temple, so the
Mohammedan turns to Mecca where his predecessors also turned
eastwards. If so, it would look as if the prayer carpet might be
only another case where a sacred ritual enclosure has been
fashioned in a permanent and portable form. And note the singular
parallel with the sand mosaics of the Hopi Indians, all the more
singular as any connection or intercourse is impossible. We have
orientation in both cases, the representations in some form of
water, of sun and moon and of vegetation. The squash blossom has
the same meanings with the Hopi as the lotus has in Asia. And is it
necessary to point the parallel with Masonic designs? Though again
there seems no possible connection in origin. Look at the
illustrations given earlier in this discussion [April, pages 119
and 120] and again we find sun and moon, clouds, running water and
vegetation. Even the wind is represented in the Masonic
frontispiece to Batty Langley's book of builders' rules and
formulae by the common Renaissance emblem of a human head depicted
as blowing in two directions, labelled, that we shall not mistake,
east and west. The Hopi represent the winds in their ceremonies,
and it is quite possible that some of the conventional figures in
oriental carpets are intended forclouds. At least some of these
have a curious resemblance to one American symbol for them, that
which is depicted at the end of the four bars of the inner square
in the diagram given last month (page 185).

Sir George Birdwood has said, and the passage has been frequently
quoted in works on the subject,

A deep and delicate symbolism, originating in Babylonia, and
possibly in India, pervades every denomination of Oriental Carpet.
Thus the carpet itself prefigures space and eternity and the
general pattern or filling the fleeting universe . . . The very
irregularities either in drawing or coloring, ., are seldom
accidental, the usual deliberate intention being to avert the evil
eye and ensure good luck.

The definite statement that this symbolism exists could hardly have
been made by this authority without good grounds, but in the light
of the material we have been discussing it is hard to believe that
the ideas of space and eternity are original. They would appear to
be but another stage in the evolution from the representation of a
definite limited piece of the earth's surface, of peculiar interest
to those concerned, to that of the whole of the known earth, and
then to the world, the universe; a sequence of ideas so natural as
to be almost inevitable.

CARPET PATTERN'S AND MAGICAL DIAGRAMS

That the conventional patterns of oriental carpets, especially
those of the prayer rug, may ultimately have been derived from a
mystical or magical diagram drawn on the ground is no more than a
surmise, but it is very evidently possible in view of the fact that
the same kind of thing has happened elsewhere. We know certainly
that this happened with regard to the diagram of the lodge. We have
also seen that in books of magical formulae the circles and
pentagrams were just as efficacious when depicted permanently on
silk as when drawn temporarily on the ground. In the Arabian Nights
we find incidents in several of the tales that tend to show that
this was a conception well known in the Orient. Strips of silk (and
the color is specified as green) are in one case laid down and the
magician expressly warns the prince, the hero of the story, that
the result will be fatal if he does not remain on his during the
evocations. Neither must we forget the wonderful flying carpet
which enabled the three brothers to return home in time to save the
princess. King Solomon, in Mohammedan legend, is also said to have
possessed such a carpet, only like everything else belonging to the
wise monarch it was on a stupendous scale, large enough to
accommodate his throne, his court and his whole army; and this is
also said to have been of green silk. Of course green is the sacred
color of Islam, but it is also the natural color of vegetation. The
idea of being magically transported from place to place by such
means seems a very bizarre one, but it may possibly have at least
a kernel of psychological fact underlying it. Fasting, dancing, the
use of various narcotic drugs, will produce a sensation that might
be described as that of flying. It has been suggested that the
belief that witches could fly through the air mounted on
broomsticks was due to the use of drugs, and dancing was a marked
feature of the nocturnal Sabbaths. Little children sometimes whirl
round to make themselves giddy, a physical condition that give a
sensation of being in the air. The connection of the sacred
enclosure with dancing we have already seen, and fasting is an
almost invariable preparation for magical ceremonies. In the
Arabian Nights and other eastern stories the burning of perfumes
and incense is an essential part of the incantations, and these may
well have had a narcotic effect. The use of the tobacco or opium
pipe is merely a more economical method of attaining the result.

THE FUNERAL PALL

We have already quoted the suggestion of Henri Gray that the cloak
or mantle mentioned as used in the outdoor "passing" of a companion
Cutler may have been a funeral pall. This does not really seem very
probable, as the pall was naturally oblong in shape, and could
hardly have been laid on the ground en rond, but a cloak or capote
is actually cut on a circular pattern, and two of them would make
a complete circle when laid out flat. It seems better, therefore,
to accept the account as it stands. Nevertheless the cloak does
seem to have represented a pall in the minds of the participants in
the ceremony, judging from the expressed symbolism as a whole. The
pall or "bearing cloth" was a very important thing in medieval
eyes, and every gild seems to have possessed one for use at the
funerals of gildsmen, and very large sums of money were frequently
paid for them. We have unfortunately not been able to obtain much
information about the designs with which they were undoubtedly
ornamented. That of the Company of vintners of the city of London
was made of cloth of gold and purple velvet with an embroidered
figure of St. Martin, the patron saint of the gild. In the London
Saddlers' Company it appears that

. . . when a new liveryman was sworn in it was at one time
customary to place the Company's Pall on the table as a token of
the vacancy--thus showing a purely symbolical use of the article.

This is a very curious coincidence and it would be exceedingly
interesting could it be found that this usage was not an isolated
one. Bro. Tuckett is authority for the following description taken
from a letter written by Pere simonnet in 1744:

. . . Before him [the Master of the Lodge] is an Altar or elongated
table covered with a Pall on which is embroidered the tomb of Hyram
with la tete decharnee two crossed swords, palms, cypresses and
winged clocks. Lastly a tapis painted on oil cloth entirely covers
the floor of the redoubtable place.

In a further description of the latter we learn it was laid in
accordance with the points of the compass, that the designs
included two columns labelled J. and B., a plan of Moses'
tabernacle, a cylindrical object surrounded by working tools, a
"brute stone" [rough ashlar] and a mysterious "five-foot chest"
[coffre de cinq pieds] with three locks in which the ornaments of
the lodge are supposed to be kept. Bro. Tuckett is inclined to see
in these designs references to the high grades. This is a subject
too large to discuss here, but it does not seem the only possible
interpretation. The death's head and crossed swords on the pall are
not very far from the emblems of mortality as shown on the design
reproduced on an earlier page (April, page 119), the winged clock
may be a variant of the winged hourglass, not an infrequent emblem,
while the floor cloth seems to follow the French 18th century
diagrams fairly closely. But the peculiar feature of this
description, whatever it may be worth (it must be remembered
Simonnet was not a Mason), is the combination of a cloth on the
floor and the pall on a table. That this may not have been an
isolated usage is suggested by the curious old wood cut entitled
"Death and the Freemason." It has been interpreted as representing
a lodge of Illuminati and this may be the fact, still it is not
likely that the Masonic part of that system varied greatly from the
normal type of the period. In this we see a similar arrangement, of
a long table before the Master and in front of that a diagram on
the floor. Another peculiarity of the arrangement described by
simonnet is the presence of a design that must surely be
interpreted as relating to the grade of Compagnon or Fellow (our
Master Mason) along with the diagram of the lodge.

NOTES

The works consulted in preparing this installment have all been
mentioned before. The volumes of A. Q. C. that have been specially
used are Nos. 8, 9, 22, 28 and 32.

It has been customary in the past to discontinue the Study Club
articles during the summer months, as such activities are in
abeyance. It seemed better, however, as this particular subject had
grown so under investigation to finish it without a break, but
under the circumstances the questions for discussion may be
omitted.
