DORMER MASONIC STUDY CIRCLE #158
FOREWORD
by
W.Bro. B. C. Pottinger, LGR, President of the Circle

For many years the Governing Council of the Circle have been
aware that very few of our Members have had the opportunity to
read the Papers prepared by the founding nucleus of Dormer. They
were Freemasons with a profound knowledge of and insight into the
Ancient Mysteries, and dedicated to disseminating their
understanding of the Craft Degrees to all who were capable of
receiving their message.

It was not an easy task, for then, as now, new Members were
attracted to the Circle through an intuitive perception of the
veracity of the truths being propounded, but were unfamiliar with
the terminology being used. For such a one not versed in the
language of the Mysteries, it takes patience and assiduity to
enable one to hear the word and rise to its meaning.

Our Founders wrought well, as many "new" Members absorbed
sufficient understanding so as to be inspired to present Papers
of their own in due time. The seal had been set on the work of
our Circle, which has continued to attract dedicated Freemasons
to continue to build on the foundation laid in 1938, and many
Members have individually served the Ideals by which we are
actuated by exercising their particular talents on our behalf
whenever the opportunity presented itself.
According to the records of the early days there were, quite
naturally, differences of opinion. Some Members argued that the
standard of Papers presented was of too high a level, and that
the best interests of the Craft could be furthered by addressing
the Papers to the level of comprehension enjoyed by the average
Lodge Member a situation that is resolved by each author
automatically expressing his own level of consciousness and
understanding of the eternal verities (which, they will tell you,
always falls short of the original intention!).

Another difference of opinion arose on the question of permitting
the discussion of a Paper at its conclusion. Some Members held
that time should be allowed for Members present to ask for
clarification of certain points introduced in the Paper which had
not been understood, or which apparently conflicted with ideas
promulgated by a particular system being studied; others held
that a Paper elevated the consciousness and it was therefore
beneficial for Brethren to remain at that level for as long as
possible, and therefore questions should not be permitted as they
tended to bring the consciousness down to the mundane level when
elements of personality were introduced.

One salient point did emerge from reading the records: Papers
were limited to a one-hour duration at each meeting. With the
passing of time Papers tended to become longer, but the reading
was spread over several meetings with a brief synopsis to
preserve continuity. This was, in part, due to the fact that the
first 30 Transactions were duplicated typewriter copies on 13 x 8
paper, but, due to the increase of Membership, from then on were
printed in the present format of 10 x 8 which, to make them a
viable proposition, required a lengthier presentation.

The Governing Council of the Circle therefore commend to you:

TRANSACTION No. 158
(Reprint of Transactions Nos. 3 and 4)

FREEMASONRY AND THE ANCIENT WISDOM

and

FREEMASONRY: HOW, WHENCE AND WHITHER?
by
W.Bro. R. A. L. Harland, LGR
(President 1939-65)

FREEMASONRY AND THE ANCIENT WISDOM
By W.Bro. R. A. L. Harland, LGR
(President 1939-65)


"FREEMASONRY AND THE ANCIENT WISDOM"

BY W.Bro. R.A.L. Harland LGR
(President 1939 - 65)

Members of Masonic Study groups are naturally keen students of
the origin and history of the Craft, and a number of serious
minded enquirers frankly admit that a perusal of the available
literature on the subject has left them confused and unconvinced.
In this paper, therefore, it is proposed to trace a rough outline
of a movement which is as old as humanity itself and the purpose
and doctrine of which are still faithfully if very rudimentarily
preserved in our Masonic system. By this means an endeavour will
be made to answer the main questions asked by many students who
are genuinely seeking for fuller enlightenment, such as; What was
the nature of the Ancient Mysteries which modern Freemasonry is
claimed to perpetuate? Can we justify the need for their
perpetuation today? For what purpose was Initiation instituted?
Did it at any time serve any real purpose or can it do so now? On
a satisfactory solution of these problems depends, to a great
extent, a comprehension of the aims and ideals of the Masonic
Order.

Now one of the first things to impress itself upon any student of
Masonic literature and comparative religion is the
remarkable-presence of common factors, common beliefs, doctrines,
practices and symbols, in the religions of all races alike,
whether ancient or modern, civilised or barbarian, Christian or
pagan.  However separated from others by time or distance,
however intellectualised or primitive, and however wide-their
differences in important respects, each people is found to have
employed and still to be employing certain ideas, symbols and
practices in common with every other. A close examination of
Masonic literature confirms and amplifies this impression, for
the student will find that numerous authors connected with the
Craft have demonstrated that there isa close correspondence to be
found in the various apparently unrelated systems, and they have
further emphasised how ancient and universal are the ideas,
symbols and practices which are embodied in our modern system of
Freemasonry.  There is one thing, however, that the student
invariably has great difficulty in determining, and this is the
reason for the antiquity and universality so clearly in evidence
according to the existing records. It is unfortunate that the
majority of those who have written treaties on Masonic history
and purpose have neglected to give an explanation on this  point,
and since it furnishes us with the essential clue to the entire
problem of the genesis, the history, and the reason for the
existence of Freemasonry, it is so important to clear up the
matter before proceeding with the general outline of our subject.

If one perseveres with research and reflection, it will become
apparent to the student that the universality and uniformity
noted by historians are due to the fact that at one time, long
back in the world's past, there was implanted in the minds of the
whole human family - which was then, doubtless, much more
concentrated than at present - a root- doctrine in regard to the
nature and destiny of the soul of man and its relation to the
Deity. In all Scriptures and cosmologies the tradition is
universal of a "Golden Age", an age of comparative innocence,
wisdom and spirituality, in which racial unity and individual
happiness and enlightenment prevailed; in which there was that
open vision for want of which it is recorded that a people
perisheth, but in virtue of which man were once in conscious
conversation with the unseen worlds and were shepherded, taught
and guided by the "gods" or discarnate superintendents of the
infant race, who imparted to them the sure principles upon which
their spiritual welfare and evolution depended. The testimony
concerning this "Golden Age" is found to be recorded in all
languages, and it is unanimously stated to be the period of the
early beginnings of the Human Race. In these early days we learn
that the psychic and physical intellect in man was dormant, and
we are told that it was on this account that infant humanity was
guided and taught under the direct superintendence of divine
Teachers and Instructors. It is of particular significance to
Freemasons to find that tradition affirms that it was under the
guidance of these Instructors that humanity was taught its first
notions of all the arts and sciences, and that it was They who
laid the foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations which so
sorely puzzle our modern generation of scholars. This will
account for the fact that no matter how far back into the night
of time  archaeological or other investigations are extended,
high stages of civilisation are found, each having an elaborate
numerical system; where, according to modern scientific theories,
only the most primitive conditions might be expected. The
presence of fully developed numerical systems in ancient
civilisations proves that the science of numbers was not slowly
evolved by primitive man learning to count on his fingers, as is
popularly supposed, and confirms the tradition of a fully
elaborated system of computation which was revealed to the
priesthood of the early Races by the Spiritual Teachers of
mankind.

We of today pride ourselves upon being wiser and more advanced
than primitive humanity.  We assume that our ancestors lived in
moral benightedness out of which we have since gradually emerged
into comparative light.  All the evidence, however, negatives
these suppositions. In fact it indicates that primitive man,
notwithstanding his intellectual undevelopment according to
modern standards, was spiritually conscious and psychically
perceptive to a degree undreamed of in our day. It is therefore
ourselves who, for all our cleverness and intellectual
development in temporal mattes, are nevertheless plunged in
darkness and ignorance about our own nature, the invisible world
around us, and the eternal spiritual verities. We may, then, well
enquire how it is that we have departed so far from our original
state, and once again tradition comes to our assistance.

The tradition is also universal of the collective soul of the
human race having sustained a "fall" a moral declension from its
true path of life and evolution, which has had the effect of
severing it almost entirely from its creative source, and which,
as the ages advanced, has involved its sinking more and more
deeply into physical conditions. This has resulted in its
splitting up from a unity employing a single language into a
diversity of conflicting races of different speeches and degrees
of moral advancement, and has been accompanied by a progressive
densification of the material body and a corresponding atrophy of
the spiritual consciousness. This tradition of our extrusion of
Fall, howsoever occasioned, from the more immediate precincts of
Deity is so catholic a one that it must have been a canon of the
root-doctrine or protoevangel which lies at the back of all the
great religious systems of history. Antiquity and universality
constitute; of course, inadequate evidence of its truth for
modern rationalism, but for the genuine student testimony to it
can be adduced from another quarter. This will be found in the
voluble sacrementalism of Nature where it is perpetuated and
registered in such a manner as will be readily discerned by the
seeing eye and understanding mind. In our day, evolution, or the
perpetual tendency of things upwards, has came to be generally
accepted as a cosmic process. But does not the capacity for
rising imply necessarily an antecedent failing? The logical value
of the evolutionary hypothesis, as of every hypothesis can only
be appraised by contrasting it with its antithesis, and the laws
of human logic, as Freemasons should well know, are shadows of
those of the LOGOS, the Divine Logician. The truth, then, of the
Fall, has been perpetuated in our phenomenal world by the fact
that to fall is the property of everything material Purified
spirit alone is capable of ascension, of counteracting the law of
gravitation,  which, as shown in the allegory of the flaming
sword of the Cherubim guarding Eden, rigidly excludes from
ascending all that is unfit to inhabit a world more advanced than
a physical one. Thus the initial act in the earthly existence of
every seed, and germ, and egg, of every newborn animal and child,
is to fall to the ground.  At the very outset of its career it
therefore rehearses in its own form or person the primal Fall of
Cosmic Spirit into the plane of Nature, while its subsequent
function is to rise and grow physically or morally according to
its kind.

So far as it affects humanity, the doctrine of the Fall,
portrayed in the Biblical legend of Adam and Eve and their
expulsion from Eden, was not due, as is popularly supposed, to
the transgression of an individual, but was the result of a
defect in the collective or group-soul of the Adamic Race, and
was a process covering vast cycles of time. Such is the unanimous
testimony of the Ancient Wisdom-tradition and despite its
rejection by many in our day, it is my conviction that we cannot
adequately apprehend the divine scheme unless we realise that the
Fall was an incident thereof that was ordained by, and that
existed primally in the prescience of, Deity; that the descent of
spirit and its incarnation in the material world was a process as
gradual as has been, and is, the rise, the emergence, of
spiritual life from within its present physical limitations.  The
incarceration of spirit, therefore, in material conditions,
involving, as it did and  does still, the struggle for
emancipation and the knowledge of evil, was, and is, essential
and  necessary to enable the spirit of man to become
self-conscious of its own inherent perfection and divinity, by
undergoing an experience which is the antithesis of its own
birthright in a plane of existence which is the antipodes of its
natural home. Hence it follows that Redemption is the necessary
complement of Creation, and accordingly we find that tradition
asserts that as a consequence of the Fall it was necessary and
within the Divine Providence that humanity should be redeemed and
restored to its former high estate, the restoration in turn
requiring vast time cycles for its achievement.  And it required
something further; It required the application of an orderly and
scientific method under skilled direction, and we may reasonably
enquire; whence could come that skill and scientific knowledge if
not from the Divine and now invisible world, from those "gods"
and guardians of the erring race of whom all the ancient
traditions and sacred writings tell? Would not that skilled
method be properly described if it were termed, as in our modern
Freemasonry it is termed, a "heavenly science" and a "noble
science", and would it not be welcomed in the words that
Freemasons in fact use, "Hail, Royal Art!" Those of our Brethren
who here responsible for the inscription set out on the
Foundation Stone of the first Freemason's Hall, which was
consecrated on the 1st, May, 1775, clearly recognised this fact,
because in declaring the authority under which the English Craft
claims precedence and jurisdiction over the "whole body of
Brethren throughout the world", they re-affirmed the "Ancient
Landmark" concerning the origin of the Science in the significant
words, "It comes down from Heaven".

To the spiritual guardians of primitive man, then, we must
attribute the communication of that universal science of
rebuilding the fallen temple of humanity, and to this source we
must credit the distribution, in every land and among every
people, of the same or equivalent symbols, practices and
doctrines. This was the one holy Catholic Religion "throughout
all the world", and it laid down the ancient and established
"usages and customs" to be followed at all times by everyone
willing to accept its discipline. It was the "Sacred Law" for the
guidance of fallen humanity, a law valid from "time immemorial",
or, in other words, from the dawn of time till its sunset, and of
which it is written, "As it was in the beginning, is now and ever
shall be, world without end".

This universal science is related to have originated in the East,
for the East, in every sense, geographically, astronomically, and
spiritually, is ever the source of light "Ex Oriente Lux" (Out of
the East Light) - and as humanity itself became diffused and
distributed over the globe, to have gradually spread towards the
West. The record of this truth is retained in our modern
Instruction Lectures in the cryptic phrase, "Learning originated
in the East and thence spread its benign influence towards the
West" (Fourth Section, First Lecture). During the process of the
distribution of humanity there came about that progressive
densification of the material body and consequent atrophy of
spiritual perception already mentioned, and on account of this
the influence of the Wisdom-teaching became correspondingly
diminished, although its principles remained as valid and
effective. To follow the course of its progress in any detail
would require a long treatise, and is therefore outside the scope
of the present Paper, but it should be noted that despite human
vagaries and conceptions the Light, like that of a Master Mason,
has never been wholly extinguished, however dark the age, and
according to tradition the present age is spiritually the darkest
of the dark ages. It is truly declared that "God has never left
himself without a living witness among men", and among the
witnesses to the Ancient Wisdom is the system we know as
Freemasonry; a faint and feeble flicker, perhaps, but
nevertheless a true light and in the true line of succession of
the primitive doctrine.

The earliest teaching of the Mysteries traceable within historic
time was in the Orient and in the language known as Sanskrit - a
name itself significant and appropriate, for it means Holy Writ
or "Sanctum Scriptum"; and for the very great lights on the
Ancient Wisdom one must still refer to the religious and
philosophical scriptures of India, which was in its spiritual and
temporal prime when modern Europe was frozen beneath an ice-cup. 
But races of men, like individuals, have their infancy, manhood
and old age; they are but units, upon a larger scale than the
individual, for furthering the general life-purpose. When a given
race has served or failed in that purpose, the stewardship of the
Mysteries passes on to other and more effectual hands.  The next
great torch-bearer of the Light of the world was Egypt, which
after many centuries of spiritual supremacy, in turn became the
arid desert it now is both spiritually and materially, leaving
nevertheless a mass of structural and written relics still
testifying to its possession of the Doctrine in the days of its
glory.  From Egypt, as civilisations developed in adjoining
countries, minor centres for impacting the knowledge were
instituted in Chaldea, Persia, Greece and Asia Minor, and a
record of this diffusion is preserved in the V. of the S.L., for
the EXODUS is, in one of its many allusions, a witness to the
passing on of the catholic mysteries from Egypt to new and virgin
regions for their enlightenment.

Of these various translations those that concern us chiefly are
two; the one to Greece, the other to Palestine. We know from the
V. of the S.L., that Moses was an initiate of the Egyptian
Mysteries and became learned in all its wisdom, while the
writings of the Alexandrian Philosopher Philo Judaeus, called
Philo the Jew, inform us that in Egypt Moses became "skilled in
Music, Geometry, Arithmetic, Hieroglyphics and the whole circle
of the arts and sciences". In other words he became in a real
sense a Master Mason and as such, qualified himself for his
subsequent great task of leadership of the Hebrew people and the
formulating of their religious system and rule of life as laid
down in the Pentateuch. The Mosaic system continued, as we know,
along the channel indicated in the books of the Old Testament,
and then after many centuries, effloresced in the greatest of all
expressions of the Mysteries, as disclosed in the Gospels of the
New Testament, or New Witness, involving the enfoldment,
comprehension, and in gathering of the religious past of the
whole world, centralised under the Supreme Grand Mastership of
Him who is called the Light of the World, and embodying all the
characteristics, legends, and symbols hitherto appertaining to
the central figures of preceding dispensations, proclaiming the
unity of all human aspiration, and formulating in one grand
system the doctrines of both the East and West.

Concurrently with the existence of the Hebrew Mysteries under the
Mosaic dispensation, the great Greek school was developing, which
originating in the Orphic religion, culminated and came to a
focus at Delphi and generated the philosophic wisdom associated
with Athens and the Periclean age. Greece was the spiritual
descendant of both India and Egypt, and we know that the great
Initiate who is accorded the title of Pythagoras journeyed to
India before being received in Egypt to take his final initiation
prior to founding the school at Crotona associated with him.
Plato also tells us that aspirants for initiation visited Egypt
before promoting spiritual advancement in Greece.

It will not be possible to deal adequately with all the
Mystery-systems in this Paper, although for purposes of
illustration in regard to our present subject a reference will be
made to one of the most famous of them, the Eleusinian, which
existed in Greece for several centuries. The word "Eleusis" means
light, and therefore initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis
proclaimed the quest of the aspirant for light, in precisely the
same sense as the Freemason today is made to declare that "Light"
is the predominant wish" of his heart. In alternative terms, the
candidate sought to be endued with "a competency of the Divine
wisdom", and was prepared to voluntarily submit himself to a
process whereby he became transformed from the natural state into
a spiritual state. Initiation, therefore, meant the gearing of
the consciousness of the candidate to a new and higher principle,
the making of a new man in the sense of attaining a new method of
life and a new outlook upon the universe. Speaking of this
process St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians. "And be
renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new
man, which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness". This process of "putting on the new man" spoken of by
St. Paul in the 4th Chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians
(verses 23 and 24) involves our comprehension of the esoteric or
spiritual interpretation of an Immaculate Conception, or, in
other words, the bringing to birth of the Divine Principle to
function within the organism of the natural man. In Freemasonry
this mystical birth is reproduced by the name "Lewis", which is
traditionally associated with the Craft.  The word "Lewis" is an
excellent example of the cryptic language deliberately employed
by the compilers of our Ritual, for on close examination it will
be found to be a corruption of Eleusis and other Greek and Latin
names indicating Light. Hence it is that in our Instruction
Lectures "Lewis" is said to designate "the son of a Freemason",
but assuredly this has no reference to human parentage and
sonship. It refers to the mystical birth of the Divine Light, the
Light of the World, in oneself; as a familiar Scriptural text has
it, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given", truly an
exalted parentage. The Instruction Lectures further describe a
"Lewis" as something which "when dovetailed into a stone forms a
clamp and enables the Mason to raise great weights to certain
heights, while fixing them on their proper bases", all of which
is a concealed way of expressing the fact that, when the Light of
Divine Wisdom is brought forward from man's submerged depths and
firmly grafted or dovetailed into his natural organism, he then
becomes able easily to grapple with difficulties, problems and
"weights" of all kinds which to the ordinary man are insuperable.

In the time that the Eleusinian Mysteries flourished as a public
institution it was regarded as essential by the cultured to apply
for initiation, on the grounds that the training and instruction
were religiously conducive to the making of good men and good
citizens, and it is worthy of mention that in our day
substantially the same message has been convoyed to the popular
world through the medium of the public press by the Aims and
Relations Committee of the United Grand Lodge of England. In
former times, however, the principles of the Initiation science
were not communicated to candidates, merely by the discharge of
certain ceremonial formalities, and educated men applied to enter
the Mysteries in the same way that in our day students go into
residence at a University and are required to graduate. The
future development and value of the Masonic Order as a moral
force in society will depend, therefore, upon a revival, in a
form adapted to modern conditions, of the ancient Wisdom-teaching
and also of the practice of those Mysteries which became
prescribed fifteen centuries ago, but of which modern Freemasonry
is the direct and representative descendant.

At the time when the Mysteries flourished, accepted candidates
were graded according to their moral efficiency and their
intellectual or spiritual stature. For a period of years they
underwent disciplinary intellectual exercises and bodily
asceticism, during which they were subjected to periodical tests
in order to determine their fitness to proceed to the more solemn
and serious processes of actual initiation. Initiation was
administered only to those who were duly qualified, and the
precise nature was of a secret and closely guarded character. An
echo of this progress by regular stages is found in our present
day ritual, in the information given to the candidate during the
Ceremony of Initiation, stipulating that "their are several
degrees in Freemasonry with peculiar secrets restricted to each"
and the accompanying reminder that these are "not conferred upon
candidates indiscriminately, but only according to merit and
ability". The education of aspirants for Initiation was directed
solely to the cultivation of the "four cardinal virtues", and
this at once brings to mind the reference in our own Lectures
wherein it is affirmed that "tradition informs us" that they
"were constantly practised by the majority of our ancient
Brethren".  A further qualification prerequisite to a
participation in the higher order of life was the study of the
"seven liberal arts and sciences".  The construction put upon
these virtues and sciences was, however, a much more advanced one
than the modern mind considers adequate; and it is interesting to
note that although we have not departed from the essential
curriculum in theory in the Craft today, in the matter of
practice there is a wide difference. For instance, with our
Ancient Brethren the virtue of TEMPERANCE involved the complete
control of the passional nature; FORTITUDE, implied a courage
which is undismayed by adversity, and which permits of no
deflection from the goal in view; PRUDENCE, comprehended that
deep insight leading to forward-seeing and producing the
prophetic faculty of seer-ship; JUSTICE, demanded unswerving
righteousness of thought, word and deed.  The "arts and sciences"
were also of a positive nature, and they were termed "liberal"
because the educational curriculum was expressly designed to
"liberate" the soul of the aspirant from the illusions incident
to the natural state.  Thus GRAMMAR, LOGIC and RHETORIC were
treated as disciplines of the moral nature, by means of which
irrational tendencies were eradicated and candidates trained to
become living witnesses of the universal Logos and effectively
speaking with the "tongue of good report". GEOMETRY and
ARITHMETIC were sciences of transcendental space and numeration,
the complete comprehension of which provided the key to both the
Universe and man himself, for each expression of life was shown
to have its number, rate of vibration or wave length, its form
and particular place in the Grand Plan of T.G.A.O.T.U. The
science of ASTRONOMY not only included the observation of the
heavenly bodies, but was primarily directed to the study of
metaphysics and the correct understanding of the distribution of
the forces in, and determining the destiny of, individuals,
nations and the race. Finally, MUSIC, was not confined to the
study of vocal or instrumental works, but was concerned with the
adjustment of the personal life into harmony with the Centre of
All Life, God, by the living practice of philosophy.

The Eleusinian Mysteries, then, involved much more than a merely
notional philosophy; they required also a philosophic method of
living, and this method was divided into two main parts, which
were known as the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries.  In the
Lesser Mysteries the elementary instruction was imparted, but the
object of these was to enable candidates to proceed with the task
of purifying and adapting their lives to the truths which were
disclosed to them. The Greater Mysteries related to developments
of consciousness within the soul itself, and were connected with
the new and intensified life which was the direct result of
fidelity to the prescribed disciplines.  To draw a faint analogy,
the Lesser Mysteries stood in the same relationship to the
Greater as our present Craft degrees do to the Holy Royal Arch.
Candidates who became proficient and properly prepared in
accordance with the curriculum of the Lesser mysteries were
eventually admitted to initiation in the Greater, while those who
failed to qualify were not permitted to proceed.  The decree
restraining unqualified candidates from advancement to the
Greater Mysteries was not arbitrary, but was absolutely necessary
in the interests of candidates themselves because inward purity
of heart and mind, coupled with the possession of the four
cardinal virtues, was essential to the ordeals of actual
initiation, which otherwise rendered the aspirant liable to
insanity and obsessions. It was for this reason that the number
of qualified candidates amounted to only a small percentage of
those who entered the Mysteries, and this law remains valid in
our day for we find the same truth restated in the V. of the
S.L., which is the text book of our modern system, in the
familiar words, "Many are called, but few are chosen".

One qualification above all was demanded from those who applied
to enter the Mysteries, - humility, and it is for admission into
important to note that the candidate for admission into
Freemasonry is still required to come "humbly soliciting".  The
reason for this was, and still is today, that the wisdom into
which the Mysteries and initiation admit a man is foolishness to
the worldly minded.  To attain it a candidate must therefore be
prepared for a complete and voluntary renunciation of worldly
wisdom and this may involve his finding negated everything he has
previously held to be true, and which, furthermore, those among
whom he ordinarily mingles will continue to believe, and insist,
to be true.  Speaking of this manner of approach to the
comprehension of things spiritual, St. Paul, in his Epistle to
the Corinthians, declares, "Let no man deceive himself, if any
man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a
fool, that he may be wise" (1st. Corinthians; Chapter 3, verse
18).  The candidate for the Christian Mysteries was instructed
that he was to be content to "become a fool for the kingdom of
heaven's sake", and was to be ready to suffer adversity and
ridicule, should the necessity arise. This was one of the prime
reasons for secrecy and one - though not the only one - of the
origins of the Masonic injunction as to secrecy. In the public
processions of the Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis, the sacramental
vessels and elements were carried upon the back of an ass, to
signify that for the reception of divine knowledge "humility is
an essential virtue", while in the V. of the S.L., the same thing
is symbolised by the Palm-Sunday ride into Jerusalem of popular
conception, of which we read, "thy King cometh unto thee, just
and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass". Apuleius, in
the "Golden Ass", provides the explanation when he writes, "There
is no creature so able to receive divinity as an ass; into which
if ye be not turned, ye shall in no wise be able to carry the
divine mysteries".

In addition to the practical instruction included in the
curriculum of the Mysteries, another and greatly educative means
employed was the expression by means of myths of truths of the
Divine world and the entire spiritual history of man. The Greek
mythologists were adepts at expressing cosmic and philosophic
truths in the guise of fables which conveyed theosophic teaching
to the discerning and veiled it from the profane.  Myth-making
was a science, and not, as many allege, an indulgence in
irresponsible fiction, and by their presentation in dramatic form
candidates were instructed in the fundamental verities of life.
One of the best known of the Greek myths is that of Demeter and
her daughter Persephone, which was performed annually with great
ceremony at the Eleusinia.  It told how the maiden Persephone
strayed away from Arcadia (heaven) and from her mother Demeter,
to pluck flowers in the fields of Enna, and how the soil there
opened and caused her to fall into the lower dark world of Hades
ruled over by Pluto. The despair of the mother at the loss of her
daughter reached Zeus, the chief of the Gods, with the result
that he ordained that providing that the girl had not eaten of
the fruit of Hades, she should forthwith be restored to her
mother for ever, but  that if she had so eaten she must abide a
third of each year with Pluto and return to Demeter for the other
two thirds. Enquiry proved that unfortunately Persephone had
eaten a pomegranate in the lower world, so that her restoration
to her mother could not be permanent, but only periodic. This
myth is the story of the human soul and is of precisely the same
nature as the Mosaic myth of Adam and Eve and the apple, and, as
the parable of the Prodigal Son, neither of which have any
physical reference.  Persephone denotes the human soul, generated
out of that primordial incorruptible mother-earth which the
Greeks personified as Demeter, in the same way as the Mosaic
narrative speaks of God forming man out of the dust of the
ground. Her straying from  her Arcadian home and heavenly mother
in quest of flowers (flowers symbolising fresh experiences) in
the fields of Enna, corresponds with the same promptings of
desire that led to Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eden and
his fall thence to this outer world, The word "Enna" signifies
"darkness and bitterness", which is the result of unruly desires,
and a fuller explanation of the meaning will be found in the V.
of the S.L., where it is translated from the original as GEHENNA.
Pluto, is designated the "god of riches", meaning the riches of
wisdom and experience, and it is into his kingdom that 
Persephone fell.  The "eating of fruit" alludes to the inferior
pleasures of this lower plane of existence, which, as the
Pomegranate symbolises, is many-seeded with illusions and
vanities. Until these false tendencies are eradicated until the
desires of the heart are utterly weaned from external delights,
there can be no permanent restoration of the soul to its source,
but merely the periodic respite and refreshment that physical
death brings when it withdraws the soul from Pluto's realm to the
heaven-world, to be followed again and again by periodic descents
into material limitations and re-ascents into discarnate,
conditions, until it becomes fully perfected.

Freemasonry, as already indicated, being the lineal descendant of
the ancient Wisdom- teaching, follows the traditional method of
imparting instruction by means of myths, and its canon of
teaching in the Craft degrees contains two such myths.  The first
is that of the building of King Solomon's Temple, and the second,
the narrative of the death and burial of the Master Builder
related in the traditional history. To the literal-minded, the
building of the Temple at Jerusalem appears to be the history of
an actual stone and mortar structure which was erected by three
Asiatic notables, one of whom conceived the idea, another
supplying the building material, whilst the third was the
practical architect and chief of works. The two former are said
to have been kings of adjacent small nations; the third was not a
royalty, but was apparently a person of no social dignity and a
widow's son.  For the good of Freemasonry in general, let it be
clearly stated in the words of St. Paul, "Which things are an
allegory", for the Masonic Temple of Solomon is not one of common
brick and stone.  It is fashioned out of that "unhewn stone" or
incorruptible raw material out of which the Creator formed the
human organism. The Jerusalem in which this temple was built was
obviously not the geographical one in Palestine, but refers to
the eternal "city of peace" in the heavens, or, in other words,
"that House not made with hands"; not, as St, Paul also affirms,
"the Jerusalem which now is", but "the Jerusalem which is above,
which is the mother of us all" (Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter
4, verse 26), and thus corresponding to the Greek

Demeter. Neither were the builders of the Temple three human
personages resident in the Levant, for their names are the
personification of the Divine energy considered in its three
constituent principles, which are otherwise spoken of in our
Lectures as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty. These three principles
of "Pillars" as they are also termed in the Instruction Lectures,
are personified by S. K. of I., H.K. of T., and H.A., and an
explanation of their concealed significance is necessary in order
to properly interpret the myth. Solomon personifies the
primordial Life-Essence or substantialised Divine Wisdom which is
the basis of our being; this is described as "King of Israel"
because Israel means "co-operating or ruling with God".  To
conjoin this transcendental Life-Essence to a vehicle which
should give it fixity and form required the assistance of another
"kingly" principle, personified as "King of Tyre", who therefore
may correctly be said to have supplied the "building material".
In Hebrew the name "Tyre" signifies "rock" and refers to strength
or durability, and the conjunction of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre
(Life-Essence and Mould or Matrix) therefore represents the
groundwork of the soul, which is made functionally effective by
the addition of the third principle described as the "widow's
son", and personifying the active intellectual principle or
Logos. Thus H. A. is the Christ-principle immanent in every soul;
crucified, dead and buried in all who are not alive to its
presence, but nevertheless resident in all as a saving force.
Again to quote St. Paul, "Christ in you, the hope of glory". The
description of this principle as "the widow's son reflects in our
modern system a beautiful piece of the Gnostic symbolism, and
refers to the widowed nature of the Divine Motherhood as the
result of the defection from wisdom of her frail children.  The
true Gnosis informs us that only those children who are striving
while in the flesh to rejoin their Mother are worthy to be known
as "sons of the widow", and as our ceremonial rite clearly
indicates, it is from these labouring at the task that the
traditional petition is addressed to all those who have rejoined
her, "Come to my help ye sons of the Widow, for I also am the
Widow's son".

The Temple of the human soul, primordially constituted of the
three principles exemplified in due balance and proportion and
divinely pronounced to be "very good", has owing to the certain
untoward incident, which is the subject of our central Masonic
legend, been thrown down from its primitive eminence. Its fall
has been effected by the disproportioned, unbalanced, and
therefore, disorderly abuse of its inherent powers.  Thus man is
now, figuratively speaking, a ruined temple, over which it is
written, "Ichabod", - "the glory has departed" for severed from
conscious intercourse with his Vital and Immortal Principle, man
is a prisoner in captivity to himself and his temporal nature; it
remains for him to retrace his steps and rebuild his temple. 
Hence it is that the Masonic candidate is counselled to continue
no longer in bondage to his self-made illusions and the
attractions of "worldly possessions", but to become a free man
and a mason, engaged in the work of shaping himself into a
"living stone" for the cosmic temple of a regenerate Humanity. In
the Craft to be installed in the "Chair of King Solomon" means,
therefore, in the true sense; the re-attainment of "that which is
lost", and this is rightly represented to be the aim of every
Freemason. In fact if we do not re-attain the Divine Wisdom
during our sojourn in this world, we miss the opportunity, since
it is universally attested to that the after-death state is not
one of labour, but of refreshment and rest, where no real
progress is possible. Initiation, therefore, was instituted to
impart the science of re-attainment, but we are reminded as the
Ancient Mysteries taught, that the soul that never even begins
this work in this world, will not be able to begin it in the
hereafter, and will remain suspended in the more tenuous planes
of this planet, until such time as it is again indrawn into the
vortex of generation by the ever-turning wheel of life. It is for
this reason that the Masonic candidate is admonished, "be careful
to perform your allotted task while it is yet day", the
implication being that stated in the V, of the S.L., "Now is the
time for salvation, for the night cometh when no man can work".
The Masonic conception of the "Grand Lodge Above" is also in
accord with the teaching contained in the V. of the
S.L.concerning the post-mortem levels of existence, for we read
that, "In my Father's house are many mansions", or, literally,
resting places, and that they and their occupants are graduated
in Hierarchical order according to their degree of spiritual
eminence. "As Above, so Below", affirms the ancient axiom, but
unfortunately the modern world has lost all sense of the
principle of hierarchy, which, since it obtains in the higher
world, ought to be reflected in this.  Freemasonry, however,
preserves the witness to this graduation in the symbolic
distribution of its membership, for above the Craft Lodge there
presides the Provincial Grand Lodge, while beyond that rules the
Grand Lodge of the nation. Then theoretically higher than any of
these is the Royal Arch Chapters with the Provincial and Grand
Chapters at the summit. Also in the symbolic clothing worn by the
members of each of these ranks, the observant student will
perceive the intention to give appropriate expression to the
truth which is thereby signified.  Thus the pure white Masonic
Apron is fringed with a pale blue in the case of junior brethren,
a pale shade of that blue which, even in physical nature, is the
colour of the heavens. In the case of the seniors of the
Provincial and Grand Lodges the pale blue of the craft is
intensified to the deepest degree, and the clothing is adorned
with gold lace, thus emblematising that which is referred to by
the Psalmist, "The King's daughter (the soul) is all glorious
within, her clothing is wrought of gold".  Proceeding to the
Royal Arch it will be observed that the devotional blue of the
craft is now indented with red, the colour of fire denoting
spiritual arbour, and the blend of these results in purple which
in both earth and heaven is always the prerogative of royalty.
Thus it is, that by their clothing in the various grades, the
members of the Masonic Order are emblematic on earth of the
angels, archangels and all the company of Heaven.

And now, brethren, may I conclude this Paper, and close, as every
Lodge is closed, in peace and concord with all my Brethren, and
with the ancient prayer that the Order may be preserved of God,
and its members cemented with every virtue. If, in what I have
written, Freemasonry has been given a conception spiritualised
beyond the measure of its common understanding, I have but
followed the example of our Ancient Brethren, who lifting their
eyes to the hills whence cometh strength, wrought their work upon
the highest eminences of the mind and discerned the Mysteries,
not with eyes of flesh, but with the vision and understanding of
the spirit.  It may be that few are prepared to ascend to those
high hills today, in this more than usually troubled and dark
age, but nevertheless some are ready and eager to do so despite
the great trials and tribulations which are incident to world in
upheaval, and for them I have especially compiled this record. At
the moment, the World-spirit is dominant in all institutions.
Wisdom is little apparent; for want of vision the people perish;
and the quest for light has to be pursued under conditions of
peculiar adversity. But, we are reminded that there is a mystery
of darkness no less than one of Light; and, in the moulding hands
of the Great Architect of the House of Life, the darkness and the
light are both alike and serve as twin pillars, that, finally,
will establish the House in strength. Those, then, who are not
yet prepared to mount the higher path of understanding the things
of the Craft, are nevertheless incorporated in our great
Fraternity, for as we are reminded by the words of a familiar
Masonic Ode, we are charged and required to extend:-

"A welcome sweet to all we meet  Within our sacred walls; May God
still grant that those we greet  May haste when Duty calls."

Finally, it remains with the craft itself, whether it shall enter
upon its own heritage as a lineal successor of the Ancient
Mysteries and Wisdom-teaching, or whether by failing to do so, it
will undergo the inevitable fate of everything that is but form,
from which the spirit has departed.

So MOTE IT BE.

FREEMASONRY:  HOW, WHENCE & WHITHER?

BY W.Bro. R.A.L. Harland LGR
(President 1939 - 65)

FREEMASONRY made its first appearance as a Society, i.e. as a
distinct organisation, in the year 1717.  Four Lodges then
existing in London combined on St. John's Day of that year to
form a Grand Lodge, "as a centre of concord and harmony", and
within a very few years there had developed from this modest
foundation an intellectual and spiritual movement of an extent
that seems almost incredible.

The Grand Lodge of 1717 was certainly not the beginning of
speculative Freemasonry, but nevertheless its inauguration
clearly marks a re-beginning on a new foundation.  When Masonic
students learn today that the formation of the first Grand Lodge
is accepted as the real starting-point of the history of the
modern Order, they are inclined to take it for granted that there
is nothing more likely to be beyond question than the
circumstances under which Speculative Freemasonry originated.
This view, however, is fallacious.  To delve into so-called
Masonic history is like trying to find one's way through a
labyrinth, or, rather, through an innumerable succession of
labyrinths; for although works on the subject are numerous, the
theories propounded by some of the authors are frequently in
direct contradiction to those of others.  The reason for this is
easily explained: the origin of Speculative Freemasonry is
shrouded in mystery.

We know approximately what happened in 1717.  We know what was
then fundamentally decided, but we know nothing whatever of the
men who assembled on that 24th day of June which has become so
significant. Solely from the fact that the Founders of the first
Grand Lodge were corporations or Lodges and not individuals, it
is clear that something more or less in obscurity predeeded the
organisation which made its fact pubic at the date in question.

But, in the course of more than two hundred years of research
this "something" has never been properly determined.

The beginnings of Speculative Freemasonry are lost in obscurity,
an obscurity that is all the greater because the Brethren of 1717
evidently made no attempt to throw even the faintest ray of light
upon it. Quite the contrary is the case.  The author of the first
and fundamental Constitutions of 1723, Dr. James Anderson, who
was also the first Masonic historian, has indeed bequeathed us an
extensive history; but what he wrote can only be regarded as
legend, dictated by the desire to make the newly created Society
appear as venerable as possible. In the Book of Constitutions of
1723 Anderson made very few references to the events which took
place in 1717 and the succeeding years.  The only direct allusion
occurs at the end of the historical portion, and is as follows:-

"And now the Freeborn British Nations, disentangled from foreign
and civil Wars, and enjoying the good Fruits of Peace and
Liberty, having of late much indulg'd their happy Genius for
Masonry of every sort, and reviv'd the drooping Lodges of London,
this fair Metropolis flourisheth, as well as other Parts, with
several worthy particular Lodges, that have a quarterly
Communication and an annual grand Assemble, wherein the Forms and
Usages of the most ancient and worshipful Fraternity are wisely
propagated, and the Royal Art duly cultivated, and the Cement of
Brotherhood preserv'd; so that the whole Body resembles a well
built Arch".

In the light of the foregoing it is quite in order to place on
record that modern Speculative Freemasonry had a beginning in the
early years of the eighteenth century, but this statement is only
valid in the sense that in the year 1717 there originated that
which afterwards developed into, and now subsists as, the English
Masonic Constitution.  Masonry itself, however, existed long
before that time, and in two distinct forms:

(1)..EXOTERIC: In the Operative Building Guilds connected with
the practical building trade.

(2)..ESOTERIC: In a variety of secret communities consisting of
mystics and occultists, having no relation to the practical
building trade, but using builder's terminology for symbolical
purposes of their own.

The advent of modern Speculative Freemasonry proclaimed to the
world that henceforth both these forms of Masonry were "cemented"
in one "grand design", and their affinity for the purpose
contemplated by the now organisation was demonstrated in "a
peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated
by symbols", when it became apparent that the Art and Craft of
Masonry which was Operative in an old order of things had emerged
Figurative in a new. How this transformation was effected, and
under whose direction, are two problems which still remain to be
solved to the satisfaction to of the large majority of Masonic
students. There seems little doubt, however, that in the Middle
Ages there existed in this country a school of philosophical
thought which practised a form of the Ancient Mysteries suitable
to those times and conditions. At the close of the 15th century a
decision appears to have been come to by some of those 
far-seeing men to put forward the old mystical tradition in a
simple form and to attempt to interest a small section of the
public in it. Some of the members of this advanced  school
therefore became incorporated with surviving Lodges of the Guild
and Fellowship of Operative Masonry, from whom we probably derive
our First and Second Degrees, with their Operative symbols and
moral instruction; thereby combining and preserving  a form of
the ancient moral dramas, of which our system is a mystical
descendant and legitimate exponent. It is admitted that this
suggestion is incapable of rigorous proof, and will not, perhaps,
commend itself to the academic mind, but notwithstanding its
rejection on these grounds, we find, about the year 1600 and
onwards, the first small signs of a movement that has eventuated
in the vast modern Masonic Craft.

The "Mary's Chapel" Lodge in Edinburgh preserves as its most
valued treasure the oldest existing masonic minute book, the
entries in which go back to the year 1598. As early as the "aucht
day of Janij the zeir of 'God 1600 yeirs", the registration of
the first non-operative - John Boswell, Laird of Auchinlook -
took place. Operative Lodges were at that time becoming obsolete
and defunct, and by 1620 we find that in London Operative Masonry
had become entirely superseded by Speculative, the members of the
former no longer working in Guilds but striving to keep alive
their old form of fellowship. In the year 1641 Sir Robert Moray,
Quartermaster-General of the Scottish Army, was initiated in
Newcastle, i.e, on English soil, by the Edinburgh Lodge, at a
meeting convened specially for his reception almost on the field
of battle.  This distinguished soldier and philosopher was a
Founder and the first President of the Royal Society. Five years
later one of the greatest scholars of the seventeenth century,
the Rosicrucian philosopher Elias Ashmole (founder of the
Ashmolean museum at Oxford) was "made a Freemason" at Warrington,
on the 16th October, 1646. In 1665 Randle Holm (to whom we are
indebted for a copy of the "Antient Charges", the so-called
Harleian Manuscript), described himself as a Freemason.
Accretions to the ranks of the Craft proceeded to be made, but
were at first few and gradual, owing to disturbed political
conditions. In 1717 four Old London Lodges were prompted to
combine in order to constitute a new nucleus. From them the first
Grand Lodge was formed and thus modern Speculative Freemasonry
was born, at an inn, The Apple Tree Tavern, in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, In 1721 Dr. Anderson was entrusted by Grand Lodge with
the task of drawing up the Constitutions of the new community,
and these were published in 1723 when the Society announced its
existence to the popular world.

The purpose of this study so far has been to formulate briefly,
for the benefit, for the benefit of students, certain facts that
illustrate that both historical research and other considerations
point to the conclusion that we owe the inception of Speculative
Freemasonry to group of Initiates who devised and projected the
general design in the 16th and 17th centuries to keep alive the
universal tradition of the Divine Mysteries at the critical
period when the modern mechanical and industrial age was about to
set in. In the words of a leading Masonic authority
(W.Bro.A.E.Waite), they "made an experiment upon the mind of the
age" by restoring to the modern world the traditional mystic
wisdom and science formerly taught in the Mysteries, but which
during the sway of the Roman Empire, had been withdrawn from the
knowledge of the public, although it had been perpetuated in
secret. It was they who inspired the movement which has now grown
into our vast Masonic system; they grafted the elementary
principles of the secret science upon the organisations of the
then decaying Building Guilds and left it heavily veiled and
crypticised, with the sure knowledge that the seed planted
therein would came to fruition in due season. All great movements
towards human betterment - and we must certainly number
Freemasonry among them - will be found to have come to birth in
circumstances of obscurity, and to have been Founded by wise men
who are usually unknown as historical personalities.  Such
movements also pass through an evolutionary progress, from a
rudimentary, to an ultimately advanced condition, the extent of
the advance being in proportion to the force and vitality of the
truth looked up in them which serves as their motive power.  Of
this nature has been the evolutional history of the Craft
hitherto, but its evolution is still far from complete. The
dynamic energies implanted in the Craft by its Founders  have now
expanded into a vast framework. This process of expansion has
been essential, because before the true spirit and inward content
of Freemasonry could be appreciated upon a scale sufficiently
wide to constitute the Order a real spiritual power in the social
body, it has been necessary to build up a vigorous physical
organisation as a vehicle in which that spirit may eventually
manifest. The growth of an institution is a slow growth,
proceeding from material apparently unpromising, and involving
continual selection, before it becomes finally forged into an
efficient instrument. So with the Masonic Order; as a physical
vehicle, a material organisation, it is as complete, as
elaborated and as efficiently controlled, as it can ever be
expected to be. It now stands waiting illumination, and that
illumination must come from within itself, even as the Divine
Presence is represented as manifesting within the symbolic Temple
of Solomon.  The Order awaits the liberation and realisation of
its own inner consciousness, hitherto dormant, and this fact is
amply demonstrated in that no sooner is the deeper and true
nature of the Masonic design revealed to the Brethren than they
leap to the recognition of it and desire to realise it; and, for
such, there can be no going back to the old ways and old
outlooks.  In this manner, then, will the Craft throughout the
world become gradually regenerated in its understanding, so
fulfilling the destiny planned for it by those who inspired its
formation three centuries ago.

The coming change must, and will, disclose that the Masonic creed
is essentially spiritual, and that all its articles relate to
interior conditions, principle and processes.  It will be found
to be based upon experimental knowledge, not on authority, and
its central figures are to be regarded in the light of
attributes, qualities and sacraments (mysteries), not persons,
nor events, however great or remarkable.  For persons and events
belong to time and to the phenomenal, while principles and
processes are eternal and noumenal. Freemasons, therefore, are
called upon to reflect that history and individual entities must
ever be regarded as constituting the accidental, and not the
essential element in a system which aims at repairing the errors
of the past fifteen centuries, by reconstructing the Mysteries on
a scientific and intelligent basis. Further, one important
reparation must, and will, be made as the direct result of
enlightenment. Today by a tacit and quite unwarranted convention
members of the Craft avoid mention in Lodge of the Christian
Master, and confine scriptural readings and references almost 
exclusively to the Old Testament, the motive being to observe the
injunction as to  refraining from religious discussion and to
prevent offence on the part of Brethren who may not be of the
Christian faith. This motive is an entirely misguided one and is,
of course, negated by the fact that the "Greater Light" upon
which every Candidate is obligated, and to which his earnest
attention is recommended from the moment of his admission to the
Order, is not only the Old Testament, but the Volume of the
Sacred Law in its entirety. Freemasons will come to recognise
that the New Testament is as essential as the Old, not merely on
account of its moral teaching, but in virtue of its  constituting
the record of the Mysteries in their supreme form and historic
culmination. It will be perceived that the Gospels, like the
Masonic Degrees, are a record of preparation and illumination,
leading up to the ordeal of death, followed by a raising  from
the dead and the attainment of Mastership, and they exhibit the
process of initiation carried to the highest conceivable degree
of attainment. Thus the Craft will learn that the Grand Master
and Exemplar of Freemasonry, Hiram Abiff, is but a figure of the
Great Master, and Saviour of the world, the divine Architect by
whom all things were made, and without Whom is nothing that hath
been made. Neither the Ancient Mysteries, nor Modern Freemasonry,
their descendant, can be rightly viewed without reference to
their relation to the Christian evangel, into which the
pro-Christian schools became assumed. Hence we find that St.
Augustine affirms (Retractationer, 1, 13, 3), "the identical
thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the
ancients, and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the
human race." A study of Patristic literature makes it quite clear
that the primitive method of the Christian Church was not the one
which now obtains, under which the religious offices and teaching
are administered to the whole public alike and in a manner
implying a common level of doctrine for all and uniform power of
comprehension by every member of the congregation.  It was, on
the contrary, a graduated method of instruction and identical
with the Masonic system of Degrees conferred by reason of
advancing merit and ability.  Admission to the early Church was
by three ceremonial degrees exactly corresponding with those of
Freemasonry, as the following quotation from one of the most
instructive of the early Christian treatises proves conclusively:

"The most holy initiation of the Mystic Rites has as its first
Godly purpose the holy cleansing of the initiated; and as second,
the enlightening instruction of the purified; and finally and as
the completion of the former, the perfecting of those instructed
in the science of their appropriate instructions". (Dionysius: On
the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy).

Originally, therefore, membership of the Christian Church
involved a sequence of three initiatory rites, and the names give
to those who had qualified in those Rites, together with their
modern equivalents in the Craft today, are respectively:-

FIRST DEGREE:        CATECHUMIENS.      ENTERED APPRENTICES.

SECOND DEGREE:             LEITURGOI.   FELLOWCRAFTS.

THIRD DEGREE:        PRESBYTERS.        MASTER MASONS.

Their first degree signified re-birth and purification of the
heart; the second was concerned with the illumination of the
intelligence; and the third related to a total death unto sin
(self-centred individuality) and a new birth unto righteousness,
in which the Candidate died with Christ on the Cross, as in our
modern Order he is made to imitate the death of Hiram, and was
raised to that higher order of life (organic integration -
resurrection in Christ, the Universal Manhood) which is
Mastership. When Christianity became a state-religion and the
Church a world-power, the materialisation of its doctrine
proceeded apace and has only increased with the centuries. For
this reason the science of regeneration has long been, and still
is, outside the scope of orthodox religion.  But despite
inhibition on the part of official orthodoxy the wisdom and the
traditional methods of the Mysteries have never been without
living witnesses in the world, and since their suppression in the
sixth century the tradition and teaching have been continued in
secret and under various concealments; and to this continuation,
our present Masonic system is due. Like the light of a Master
Mason which never becomes wholly extinguished, so in the world's
darkest days the light of the Mysteries never goes out entirely,
and, if, in comparison with other witnesses, Freemasonry is shown
to be but a glimmering ray, it is none the less a true ray from
the world's central altar-flame. Hence, the attention of the
modern Craft may be directed to the words of the well known hymn,
"Lead Kindly Light", for indeed it is sufficient to lead us on
amid the encircling gloom, until the now day shall dawn; Light is
granted to us in proportion to the desire of our hearts, and have
we not affirmed that, "Light is the predominant wish of our
hearts"?

The Masonic system was devised at a time of general unrest and
change when spiritual life was running extremely low and the
modern intellectual, mechanical and industrial era was about to
commence. In such circumstances something had to be done in order
to preserve the universal mystical tradition, and this
"something" had to be of such a nature that it would at the same
time provide an introduction to the root principles and methods
of the Secret Doctrine of Initiation for the benefit of any who
could discern and profit by them during the period of spiritual
obsouration.  As we have seen, following upon the decision come
to by certain Illuminates calling themselves members of the
"Invisible Society," Speculative Freemasonry emerged in the year
1723 as a system of morality presented in the form of Ritual.
From that time to the present the process of development has gone
steadily forward, and however misunderstood and misapplied have
been the rites and ceremonies, it at last may be affirmed that
the soul and consciousness of every voluntary participant in
them, stands imperishably impressed with the memory of them. The
familiar axiom, "Once a Mason always a Mason" expresses an occult
truth not realised by those who are unaware of the subjective
value and persistence of deliberated actions.  Let it therefore
be clearly understood that the incorporation of each Candidate in
the "body of Freemasonry" means also an addition to the aggregate
volume of the group Masonic consciousness, and that following
this incorporation reactions and consequences ensue of a nature
too abstruse to dilate upon here. Meanwhile, tinctured and
affected by this metaphysical influence from the subjective
world, the work of the Craft proceeds within this bourne of time
and place; beginning, as we have ample evidence to show, with
tendencies of the natural order and following along the line of
the law of orderly development as propounded in the dictum of
St.Paul, recorded in the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
Chapter 15, verse 46, "Howbeit, that was not first which is
spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is
spiritual".  Operative Masonry preceded and became spiritualised
into Speculative, and the crude beginnings of the latter are now
becoming sublimated into a more subtle conception and tending
towards a scientific mysticism, at once theoretic and practical.
We may, then with confidence, look forward to the gradual
spiritualisation of the Craft and to its becoming - when time and
circumstances permit - the porchway or entrance to a still more
advanced expression of the Sacred Mysteries.  But, at the same
time we must never forget that the Craft will only become what
its individual members make it, and if they continue to see in it
only a ceremonial procedure, at such it will remain. Let us then
strive, each one of us, to realize and make our own the living
spirit and intention which lies behind the outward rites, and
enter into the Mystical Quest for that "which is lost," when we
ourselves find we shall be able to communicate to our fellow
seekers, until the Craft is justified of all its Brethren and
becomes -  as it was intended to become - a great light in a dark
world.

Finally, the future of the Order cannot be appraised without
reference to the general social life surrounding it; for it is
not something apart and detached from that life but an integral
element of it, and between the two there is perpetual interaction
and reaction.  It follows, therefore, that in the fleeting
glimpses of the revival of the Masonic philosophy which are even
now discernable as taking place within the Craft, may be seen at
once the token and the agent of the world's deliverance. For,
Brethren of the Craft, it means the supersession of a period of
obsouration by one of illumination, in which men can once more
rise from the appreciation of the Form to that of the Substance,
of the Letter to that of the Spirit, and thus discern the meaning
of the Divine Word, whether written or enacted.  This recognition
of the ideal will signify the reconstruction of the religious
life upon a scientific basis, and of science upon a religious
basis.  So long as Masonry continues to build upon the mere facts
of phenomena and history, she builds upon a sandbank, on which
the still advancing tide of scientific and academic criticism is
ever encroaching, and which sooner or later must be swept away
with all that is founded upon it. But, when She (Masonry -
intuitional understanding) learns the secret of the HIRAMIC, that
is the Esoteric interpretation, then, and then only, does She
build upon a Rock or Foundation, which shall never be shaken. 
Such is the import of the name HIRAM (As the Spirit of
Understanding, the name HIRAM or HERMES signifies both ROCK and
INTERPRETER) the Foundation of the Masonic Temple, and it is on
this Hermetic Rock of inward illumination and spiritual life,
called the Mount of Regeneration, that the great Mystics of all
time have ever taken their stand. Hereon were founded the
Pythagorean and Neoplatonic Schools, the system of the
Alexandrian Gnostics, and the various Lodges of semi-oriental
philosophy of Egypt and Asia Minor in the centuries immediately
preceding the Christian era. And in later days the self same
illumination formulated itself by the lips of and pens of the
Initiates of the thirteenth and following centuries - the epoch
of St. Bernard, of Eckhart, Tauler, Ruysbroeck.  In the early
eighteenth century Speculative Freemasonry emerged, heavily
veiled and crypticised, but proclaiming itself in the direct line
of succession of the Ancient Wisdom. It is true that in our day,
even as the Old Teacher declares, "Wisdom is the principal thing;
therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding"
(Proverbs 4, 7), and this counsel may well be commended to the
Masonic Fraternity, which at present so little understands its
own system.  But, understanding depends upon the gift of the
Supernal Light, and this gift in turn depends upon the ardour of
our desire for it. If Wisdom today is widowed, lot us not forget
that all Freemasons are actually or potentially the Widow's sons,
and she will be justified of those of her children who labour for
her and thus obey the injunction, "Exalt her, and she shall
promote thee" (Proverbs 4, 8). Brethren of the Craft, "now is the
time to perform our allotted task"!

"EST IN MERCURIO QUICQUID QUOERUNT SAPIENTES"  (All is in the
understanding that the wise seek). Hermetic Motto.

 SO NOTE IT BE.