THE BUILDER MAY 1916

SOME DEEPER ASPECTS OF MASONIC SYMBOLISM
BY BRO. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE, ENGLAND 

PART II

There are two ways in which the Master Degree may be thought to
lapse from perfection in respect of its symbolism, and I have not
taken out a license to represent it as of absolute order in these
or in any respects. This has been practically intimated already.
Perhaps it is by the necessity of things that it has recourse
always to the lesser meaning, for it is this which is more readily
understood. On the other hand, much must be credited to its
subtlety, here and there, in the best sense of the term. There is
something to be said for an allegory which he who runs may read, at
least up to a certain point. But those who made the legend and the
ritual could not have been unaware of that which the deeper side
shows forth; they have left us also the Opening and Closing as of
the great of all greatness--so it seems to me, my Brethren --in
things of ceremony and ritual. Both are devoid of explanation, and
it is for us to understand them as we can.

For myself it is obvious that something distinct from the express
motives of Masonry has come to us in this idea of Raising. The
Instituted Mysteries of all ages and countries were concerned in
the figuration, by means of ritual and symbolism, of New Birth, a
new life, a mystic death and resurrection, as so many successive
experiences through which the Candidate passed on the way of his
inward progress from earthly to spiritual life, or from darkness to
light. The Ritual or Book of the Dead is a case in point. It has
been for a long period regarded by scholarship as intimating the
after-death experiences or adventures of the soul in the halls of
judgment, and so forth; but there are traces already of the genesis
of a new view, chiefly in the writing of Mr. W. Flinders Petrie,
according to which some parts at least of this great text are
really a rite of initiation and advancement, through which
Candidates pass in this life.

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

If I am putting this rather strongly as regards one important
authority, it is at least true to say that he appears to discern
the mystical side of the old Egyptian texts, while there are
others, less illustrious than he, who have gone much further in
this direction. It is very difficult for one like myself, although
unversed in Egyptology, to study such a work as "Osiris and the
Egyptian Resurrection," by E. Wallis Budge, without feeling very
strongly that there is much to be said for this view, or without
hoping that it will be carried further by those who are properly
warranted.

So far as it is possible to speak of the Kabiric Mysteries, there
was in those an episode of symbolical death, because Kasmillos, a
technical name ascribed to the Candidate, was represented as slain
by the gods. Some of the rites which prevailed within and around
Greece in ancient times are concerned with the idea of a
regeneration or new birth. The Mysteries of Bacchus depicted the
death of this god and his restoration to light as Rhea. Osiris died
and rose, and so also did Adonis. He was first lamented as dead and
then his revivification was celebrated with great joy. There is no
need, however, to multiply the recurrence of these events in the
old Mysteries nor to restrict ourselves within their limits, for
all religions have testified to the necessity of regeneration and
have administered its imputed processes. That which is most
important-- from my point of view--is the testimony belonging to
Christian times and the secret tradition therein.

THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES

Of course, to speak of this it is necessary to trend on subjects
which at the present are excluded, and very properly so, from
discussion in a Craft Lodge, when they are presented from a
religious and doctrinal angle. I shall not treat them from that
standpoint, but rather as a sequence of symbolism in the form of
dramatic mystery, alluding slightly, and from a philosophical point
of view only, to the fact that in certain schools they are regarded
as delineating momentous experiences in the history and life of
man's soul. That new birth which conferred upon the Eleusinian
mystae the title of Regenerated Children of the Moon--so that each
one of them was henceforth symbolically a Son of the Queen of
Heaven--born as a man originally and reborn in a divine manner--has
its correspondence on a much higher plane of symbolism with the
Divine Birth in Bethlehem, according to which a child was "born"
and a son "given," who, in hypothesis at least, was the Son of God,
but Son also of Mary--one of whose titles, according to Latin
theology, is Queen of Heaven.

The hidden life in Egypt and Nazareth corresponds to the life of
seclusion led by the mystae during their period of probation
between the Lesser and Greater Mysteries. The three years of
ministry are in analogy with the Temple-functions of the
mystagogues. But lastly, in Egypt and elsewhere, there was the
mystic experience of the Pastos, in which the initiate died
symbolically, as Jesus died upon the Cross. The Christian
"Symbolum" says:--Descendit ad inferos: that is, "He descended into
hell"; and in the entranced condition of the Pastos, the soul of
the Postulant was held or was caused to wander in certain spiritual
realms. But in fine, it is said of Christ:--Tertia die resurrexit;
"the third day he rose again from the dead." So also the Adept of
the Greater Mysteries rose from the Pastos in the imputed glory of
an inward illumination.

THE MYSTICAL FACT

There was a period not so long ago when these analogies were
recognized and applied to place a fabulous construction upon the
central doctrines of Christian religion, just as there was a period
when the solar mythology was adapted in the same direction. We have
no call to consider these aberrations of a partially digested
learning; but they had their excuses in their period. The point on
which I would insist is that in the symbolism of the old
initiations, and in the pageant of the Christian mythos, there is
held to be the accurate delineation of a mystical experience, the
heads and sections of which correspond to the notions of mystic
birth, life, death and resurrection. It is a particular formula
which is illustrated frequently in the mystic literature of the
western world. Long before symbolical Masonry had emerged above the
horizon, several cryptic texts of alchemy, in my understanding,
were bearing witness to this symbolism and to something real in
experience which lay behind it. In more formal Christian mysticism,
it was not until the 16th century and later that it entered into
the fullest expression.

Now, that which is formulated as mystic birth is comparable to a
dawn of spiritual consciousness. It is the turning of the whole
life-motive in the divine direction, so that, at a given time--
which is actually the point of turning--the personality stands
symbolically between the East and the North, between the greatest
zone of darkness and that zone which is the source of light,
looking towards the light-source and realizing that the whole
nature has to be renewed therein. Mystic life is a quest of divine
knowledge in a world that is within. It is the life led in this
light, progressing and developing therein, as if a Brother should
read the Mysteries of Nature and Science with new eyes cast upon
the record, which record is everywhere, but more especially in his
own mind and heart. It is the complete surrender to the working of
the divine, so that an hour comes when proprium meum et tuum dies
in the mystical sense, because it is hidden in God. In this state,
by the testimony of many literatures, there supervenes an
experience which is described in a thousand ways yet remains
ineffable. It has been enshrined in the imperishable books of Plato
and Plotinus. It glimmers forth at every turn and corner of the
remote roads and pathways of Eastern philosophies. It is in little
books of unknown authorship, treasured in monasteries and most of
which have not entered into knowledge, except within recent times.

THE PLACE OF DARKNESS

The experience is in a place of darkness, where, in other
symbolism, the sun is said to shine at midnight. There is
afterwards that further state, in which the soul of man returns
into the normal physical estate, bringing the knowledge of another
world, the quest ended for the time being at least. This is
compared to resurrection, because in the aftermath of his
experience the man is, as it were, a new being. I have found in
most mythological legends that the period between divine death and
resurrection was triadic and is spoken of roughly as three days,
though there is an exception is the case of Osiris, whose
dismemberment necessitated a long quest before the most important
of his organs was left finally lost. The three days are usually
foreshortened at both ends; the first is an evening, the second a
complete day, while the third ends at sunrise. It is an allusion to
the temporal brevity ascribed in all literatures to the culminating
mystical experience. It is remarkable, in this connection, that
during the mystic death of the Candidate in the Third Degree, the
time of his interned condition is marked by three episodes, which
are so many attempts to raise him, the last only being successful.

OPERATIVE MASONRY

Two things follow unquestionably from these considerations, so far
as they have proceeded. The interest in Operative Masonry and its
records, though historically it is of course important, has
proceeded from the beginning on a misconception as to the aims and
symbolism of Speculative Masonry. It was and it remains natural,
and it has not been without its results, but it is a confusion of
the chief issues. It should be recognized henceforward that the
sole connection between the two Arts and Crafts rests on the fact
that the one has undertaken to uplift the other from the material
plane to that of morals on the surface and of spirituality in the
real intention. Many things led up thereto, and a few of them were
at work unconsciously within the limits of Operative Masonry. At a
period when there was a tendency to symbolize everything roughly,
so that it might receive a tincture of religion--I speak of the
Middle Ages--the duty of Apprentice to Master, and of Master to
pupil, had analogies with relations subsisting between man and God,
and they were not lost sight of in those old Operative documents.
Here was a rudiment capable of indefinite extension. The placing of
the Lodges and of the Craft at large under notable patronage, and
the subsequent custom of admitting persons of influence, offered
another and quite distinct opportunity. These facts
notwithstanding, my position is that the traces of symbolism which
may in a sense be inherent in Operative Masonry did not produce, by
a natural development, the Speculative Art and Craft, though they
helped undoubtedly to make a possible and partially prepared field
for the great adventure and experiment.

THE OLD CHARGES

The second point is that we must take the highest intention of
symbolism in the Third Degree to some extent apart from the
setting. You will know that the literary history of our ritual is
rather non-existent than obscure, or if this is putting the case a
little too strongly, it remains that researches have so far left
the matter in a dubious position. The reason is not for our
seeking, for the kind of enquiry that is involved is one of
exceeding difficulty. If I say that it is my personal aspiration to
undertake it one of these days, I speak of what is perhaps a
distant hope. That which is needed is a complete codification of
all the old copies, in what language soever, which are scattered
through the Lodges and libraries of the whole Masonic world,
together with an approximate determination of their dates by expert
evidence. In my opinion, the codices now in use have their roots in
the 18th century, out were edited and re-edited at an even later
date.

I have now brought before you in somewhat disjointed manner--as I
cannot help feeling--several independent considerations, each of
which, taken separately, institutes certain points of
correspondence between Masonry and other systems of symbolism, but
they do not at present enter into harmony. I will collect them as
follows:--

(1) Masonry has for its object, under one aspect, the building of
the Candidate as a house or temple of life. Degrees outside the
Craft aspire to this building as a living stone in a spiritual
temple, meet for God's service.

(2) Masonry presents also a symbolical sequence, but in a somewhat
crude manner, of Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection, which other
systems indicate as a mystery of experience.

(3) Masonry, in fine, represents the whole body of its Adepti as in
search of something that has been lost, and it tells us how and
with whom that loss came about.

These are separate and independent lines of symbolism, though, as
indicated already, they are interlinked by the fact of their
incorporation in Craft Masonry, considered as a unified system. But
the truth is that between the spiritual building of the First
Degree and the Legend of Solomon's Temple there is so little
essential correspondence that the one was never intended to lead up
to the other. The symbolism of the Entered Apprentice Degree is of
the simplest and most obvious kind; it is also personal and
individualistic. That of the Master Degree is complex and remote in
its significance; it is, moreover, an universal mythos. I have met
with some searchers of the mysteries who seem prepared to call it
cosmic, but I must not carry you so far as this speculation would
lead us, and I do not hold a brief for its defense. I am satisfied
in my own mind that the Third Degree has been grafted on the others
and does not belong to them. There has been no real attempt to weld
them, but they have been drawn into some kind of working sequence
by the Exhortation which the Worshipful Master recites prior to the
dramatic scene in the last Master Degree. To these must be added
some remarks to the Candidate immediately after the Raising. The
Legend is reduced therein to the uttermost extent possible in
respect of its meaning, though it is possible that this has been
done of set purpose.

LIVING STONES

It will be seen that the three aspects enumerated above/fall under
two heads in their final analysis, the first representing a series
of practical counsels, thinly allegorised upon in terms of
symbolical architecture. The Candidate is instructed to work
towards his own perfection under the light of Masonry. There is no
mystery, no concealment whatever, and it calls for no research in
respect of its source. Its analogies and replicas are everywhere,
more especially in religious systems. It is a reflection of the
Pauline doctrine that man is or may become a temple of the Holy
Spirit. But it should be observed in this connection that there is
a rather important-though confusing mixture of images in the
address of the Worshipful Master to the Candidate, after the latter
has been invested and brought to the East. It is pointed out to him
that he represents the cornerstone of a building--as it might be,
the whole Masonic edifice but he is immediately counselled to raise
a superstructure from the foundation of that corner-stone--thus
reversing the image. That of the corner-stone is like an
externalization in dramatic form of an old Rosicrucian maxim
belonging to the year 1629:--"Be ye transmuted from dead stones
into living, philosophical stones."

From my point of view, it is the more important side of the
symbolism; it is as if the great Masonic edifice were to be raised
on each Candidate; and if every Neophyte shaped his future course
both in and out of Masonry, as though this were the case actually,
I feel that the Royal Art would be other than it now is and that
our individual lives would differ.


(Continued)

DESIRE

Desires are pulses of the soul
That lead us on to acts unknown, 
If reason stands not at the goal,
Our actions make us to atone.

Desire is thirst that's never filled;
Of every act it is the mother; 
Direct these cravings, be well skilled.
For every one creates another.

However rich we may become,
The nameless wants are always there, 
And so it is from sun to sun,
This ceaseless urge from ev'rywhere.

There are no limits to desire,
For endless worlds about us roll; But that to which we all aspire,
Is realization of the soul.
--A. B. Rugg, Minn.


My mind lets go a thousand things, 
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, 
And yet recalls the very hour-- 
'Twas noon by yonder village tower, 
And on the last blue noon in May 
The wind came briskly up this way, 
Crisping the brook beside the road; 
Then, pausing here, set down its load, 
Of pine scents and shook listlessly 
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.
--Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
