THE LOST KEYS OF FREEMASONRY or The Secret of Hiram Abiff

by

MANLY P. HALL

PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD

The steady demand and increasing popularity of this volume, of

which eighteen thousand copies have been printed since it first

appeared a few years ago, have brought the present revised and

rearranged edition into being. The text can be read with profit by

both new and old Mason, for within its pages lies an interpretation

of Masonic symbolism which supplements the monitorial instruction

usually given in the lodges.

The leading Masonic scholars of all times have agreed that the

symbols of the Fraternity are susceptible of the most profound

interpretation and thus reveal to the truly initiated certain

secrets concerning the spiritual realities of life. Freemasonry is

therefore more than a mere social organization a few centuries old,

and can be regarded as a perpetuation of the philosophical

mysteries and initiations of the ancients. This is in keeping with

the inner tradition of the Craft, a heritage from pre-Revival days.

The present volume will appeal to the thoughtful Mason as an

inspiring work, for it satisfies the yearning for further light and

leads the initiate to that Sanctum Sanctorum where the mysteries

are revealed. The book is a contribution to Masonic idealism,

revealing the profounder aspects of our ancient and gentle

Fraternity - those unique and distinctive features which have

proved a constant inspiration through the centuries.

FOREWORD

By REYNOLD E. BLIGHT, 33 degree, K. T.

Reality forever eludes us. Infinity mocks our puny efforts to

imprison it in definition and dogma. Our most splendid

realizations are only adumbrations of the Light. In his endeavors,

man is but a mollusk seeking to encompass the ocean.

Yet man may not cease his struggle to find God. There is a

yearning in his soul that will not let him rest, an urge that

compels him to attempt the impossible, to attain the unattainable.

He lifts feeble hands to grasp the stars and despite a million

years of failure and millenniums of disappointment, the soul of man

springs heavenward with even greater avidity than when the race was

young.

He pursues, even though the flying ideal eternally slips from his

embrace. Even though he never clasps the goddess of his dreams, he

refuses to believe that she is a phantom. To him she is the only

reality. He reaches upward and will not be content until the sword

of Orion is in his hands, and glorious Arcturus gleams from his

breast.

Man is Parsifal searching for the Sacred Cup; Sir Launfal

adventuring for the Holy Grail. Life is a divine adventure, a

splendid quest

Language falls. Words are mere cyphers, and who can read the

riddle? These words we use, what are they but vain shadows of form

and sense? We strive to clothe our highest thought with verbal

trappings that our brother may see and understand; and when we

would describe a saint he sees a demon; and when we would present a

wise man he beholds a fool. "Fie upon you," he cries; "thou, too,

art a fool."

So wisdom drapes her truth with symbolism, and covers her insight

with allegory. Creeds, rituals, poems are parables and symbols.

The ignorant take them literally and build for themselves prison

houses of words and with bitter speech and bitterer taunt denounce

those who will not join them in the dungeon. Before the rapt

vision of the seer, dogma and ceremony, legend and trope dissolve

and fade, and he sees behind the fact the truth, behind the symbol

the Reality.

Through the shadow shines ever the Perfect Light.

What is a Mason? He is a man who in his heart has been duly and

truly prepared, has been found worthy and well qualified, has been

admitted to the fraternity of builders, been invested with certain

passwords and signs by which he may be enabled to work and receive

wages as a Master Mason, and travel in foreign lands in search of

that which was lost - The Word.

Down through the misty vistas of the ages rings a clarion

declaration and although the very heavens echo to the

reverberations, but few hear and fewer understand: "In the

beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was

God."

Here then is the eternal paradox. The Word is lost yet it is ever

with us. The light that illumines the distant horizon shines in

our hearts. "Thou wouldist not seek me hadst thou not found me." We

travel afar only to find that which we hunger for at home.

And as Victor Hugo says: "The thirst for the Infinite proves

infinity."

That which we seek lives in our souls.

This, the unspeakable truth, the unutterable perfection, the author

has set before us in these pages. Not a Mason himself, he has read

the deeper meaning of the ritual. Not having assumed the formal

obligations, he calls upon all mankind to enter into the holy of

holies. Not initiated into the physical craft, he declares the

secret doctrine that all may hear.

With vivid allegory and profound philosophical disquisition he

expounds the sublime teachings of Freemasonry, older than all

religions, as universal as human aspiration.

It is well. Blessed are the eyes that see, and the ears that hear,

and the heart that understands.

INTRODUCTION

Freemasonry, though not a religion, is essentially religious. Most

of its legends and allegories are of a sacred nature; much of it is

woven into the structure of Christianity. We have learned to

consider our own religion as the only inspired one, and this

probably accounts for much of the misunderstanding in the world

today concerning the place occupied by Freemasonry in the spiritual

ethics of our race. A religion is a divinely inspired code of

morals. A religious person is one inspired to nobler living by

this code. He is identified by the code which is his source of

illumination. Thus we may say that a Christian is one who receives

his spiritual ideals of right and wrong from the message of the

Christ, while a Buddhist is one who molds his life into the

archetype of morality given by the great Gautama, or one of the

other Buddhas. All doctrines which seek to unfold and preserve

that invisible spark in man named Spirit, are said to be spiritual. 

Those which ignore this invisible element and concentrate

entirely upon the visible are said to be material. There is in

religion a wonderful point of balance, where the materialist and

spiritist meet on the plane of logic and reason. Science and

theology are two ends of a single truth, but the world will never

receive the full benefit of their investigations until they have

made peace with each other, and labor hand in hand for the

accomplishment of the great work - the liberation of spirit and 

intelligence from the three-dimensional prison-house of ignorance,

superstition, and fear. That which gives man a knowledge of himself

can be inspired only by the Self - and God is the Self in all

things. In truth, He is the inspiration and the thing inspired. It

has been stated in Scripture that God was the Word and that the

Word was made flesh. Man's task now is to make flesh reflect the

glory of that Word, which is within the soul of himself. It is

this task which has created the need of religion - not one faith

alone but many creeds, each searching in its own way, e ach meeting

the needs of individual people, each emphasizing one point above

all the others.

Twelve Fellow Craftsmen are exploring the four points of the

compass. Are not these twelve the twelve great world religions,

each seeking in its own way for that which was lost in the ages

past, and the quest of which is the birthright of man? Is not the

quest for Reality in a world of illusions the task for which each

comes into the world? We are here to gain balance in a sphere of

unbalance; to find rest in a restless thing; to unveil illusion;

and to slay the dragon of our own animal natures. As David, King

of Israel, gave to the hands of his son Solomon the task he could

not accomplish, so each generation gives to the next the work of

building the temple, or rather, rebuilding the dwelling of the

Lord, which is on Mount Moriah.

Truth is not lost, yet it must be sought for and found. Reality is

ever-present - dimensionless yet all-prevailing. Man - creature of

attitudes and desires, and servant of impressions and opinions -

cannot, with the wavering unbalance of an untutored mind, learn to

know that which he himself does not possess. As man attains a

quality, he discovers that quality, and recognizes about him the

thing newborn within himself. Man is born with eyes, yet only

after long years of sorrow does he learn to see clearly and in

harmony with the Plan. He is born with senses, but only after long

experience and fruitless strivings does he bring these senses to

the temple and lays them as offerings upon the altar of the great

Father, who alone does all things well and with understanding. Man

is, in truth, born in the sin of ignorance, but with a capacity for

understanding. He has a mind capable of wisdom, a heart capable of

feeling, and a hand strong for the great work in life - truing the

rough ashlar into the perfect stone.

What more can any creature ask than the opportunity to prove the

thing he is, the dream that inspires him, the vision that leads him

on? We have no right to ask for wisdom. In whose name do we beg

for understanding? By what authority do we demand happiness? None

of these things is the birthright of any creature; yet all may have

them, if they will cultivate within themselves the thing that they

desire. There is no need of asking, nor does any Deity bow down to

give man these things that he desires. Man is s given by Nature, a

gift, and that gift is the privilege of labor. Through labor he

learns all things.

Religions are groups of people, gathered together in the labor of

learning. The world is a school. We are here to learn, and our

presence here proves our need of instruction. Every living

creature is struggling to break the strangling bonds of limitation

- that pressing narrowness which inhabits vision and leaves the

life without an ideal. Every soul is engaged in a great work - the

labor of personal liberation from the state of ignorance. The

world is a great prison; its bars are the Unknown. And each is a

prisoner until, at last, he earns the right to tear these bars from

their moldering sockets, and pass, illuminated and inspired, into

the darkness, which becomes lighted by that presence. All peoples

seek the temple where God dwells, where the spirit of the great

Truth illuminates the shadows of human ignorance, but they know not

which way to turn nor where this temple is. The mist of dogma

surrounds them. Ages of thoughtlessness bind them in. Limitation

weakens them and retards their footsteps. They wander in darkness

seeking light, failing to realize that the light is in the heart of

the darkness.

To the few who have found Him, God is revealed. These, in turn,

reveal Him to man, striving to tell ignorance the message of

wisdom. But seldom does man understand the mystery that has been

unveiled. He tries weakly to follow in the steps of those who have

attained, but all too often finds the path more difficult than he

even dreamed. So he kneels in prayer before the mountain he cannot

climb, from whose top gleams the light which he is neither strong

enough to reach nor wise enough to comprehend. He l lives the law

as he knows it, always fearing in his heart that he has not read

aright the flaming letters in the sky, and that in living the

letter of the Law he has murdered the spirit. Man bows humbly to

the Unknown, peopling the shadows of his own ignorance with saints

and saviors, ghosts and spectres, gods and demons. Ignorance fears

all things, falling, terror-stricken before the passing wind.

Superstition stands as the monument to ignorance, and before it

kneel all who realize their own weakness; who see in all things

the strength they do not possess; who give to sticks and stones the

power to bruise them; who change the beauties of Nature into the

dwelling place of ghouls and ogres. Wisdom fears no thing, but

still bows humbly to its own Source. While superstition hates all

things, wisdom, with its deeper understanding, loves all things;

for it has seen the beauty, the tenderness, and the sweetness which

underlie Life's mystery.

Life is the span of time appointed for accomplishment. Every

fleeting moment is an opportunity, and those who are great are the

ones who have recognized life as the opportunity for all things.

Arts, sciences, and religions are monuments standing for what

humanity has already accomplished. They stand as memorials to the

unfolding mind of man, and through them man acquires more efficient

and more intelligent methods of attaining prescribed results.

Blessed are those who can profit by the experiences of others;

who, adding to that which has already been built, can make their

inspiration real, their dreams practical. Those who give man the

things he needs, while seldom appreciated in their own age, are

later recognized as the Saviors of the human race.

Masonry is a structure built upon experience. Each stone is a

sequential step in the unfolding of intelligence. The shrines of

Masonry are ornamented by the jewels of a thousand ages; its

rituals ring with the words of enlightened seers and illuminated

sages. A hundred religions have brought their gifts of wisdom to

its altar. Arts and sciences unnumbered have contributed to its

symbolism. It is more than a faith; it is a path of certainty. It

is more than a belief; it is a fact. Masonry is a university,

teaching the liberal arts and sciences of the soul to all who will

attend to its words. It is a shadow of the great Atlantean Mystery

School, which stood with all its splendor in the ancient City of

the Golden Gates, where now the turbulent Atlantic rolls in

unbroken sweep. Its chairs are seats of learning; its pillars

uphold the arch of universal education, not only in material

things, but also in those qualities which are of the spirit. Up on

its trestleboards are inscribed the sacred truths of all nations

and of all peoples, and upon those who understand its sacred depths

has dawned the great Reality. Masonry is, in truth, that long-lost

thing which all peoples have sought in all ages. Masonry is the

common denominator as well as the common devisor of human

aspiration.

Most of the religions of the world are like processions: one leads,

and the many follow. In the footsteps of the demigods, man follows

in his search for truth and illumination. The Christian follows

the gentle Nazarene up the winding slopes of Calvary. The Buddhist

follows his great emancipator through his wanderings in the

wilderness. The Mohammedan makes his pilgrimage across the desert

sands to the black tent at Mecca. Truth leads, and ignorance

follows in his train. Spirit blazes the trail, and matter follows

behind. In the world today ideals live but a moment in their

purity, before the gathering hosts of darkness snuff out the

gleaming spark. The Mystery School, however, remains unmoved. It

does not bring its light to man; man must bring his light to it.

Ideals, coming into the world, become idols within a few short

hours, but man, entering the gates of the sanctuary, changes the

idol back to an ideal.

Man is climbing an endless flight of steps, with his eyes fixed

upon the goal at the top. Many cannot see the goal, and only one

or two steps are visible before them. He has learned, however, one

great lesson - namely, that as he builds his own character he is

given strength to climb the steps. Hence a Mason is a builder of

the temple of character. He is the architect of a sublime mystery

- the gleaming, glowing temple of his own soul. He realizes that

he best serves God when he joins with the Great Architect in

building more noble structures in the universe below. All who are

attempting to attain mastery through constructive efforts are

Masons at heart, regardless of religious sect or belief. A Mason

is not necessarily a member of a lodge. In a broad sense, he is

any person who daily tries to live the Masonic life, and to serve

intelligently the needs of the Great Architect. The Masonic

brother pledges himself to assist all other temple-builders in

whatever extremity of life; and in so doing he pledges himself to

every living thing, for they are all temple-builders, building more

noble structures to the glory of the universal God.

The true Masonic Lodge is a Mystery School, a place where

candidates are taken out of the follies and foibles of the world

and instructed in the mysteries of life, relationships, and the

identity of that germ of spiritual essence within, which is, in

truth, the Son of God, beloved of His Father. The Mason views life

seriously, realizing that every wasted moment is a lost

opportunity, and that Omnipotence is gained only through

earnestness and endeavor. Above all other relationships he

recognizes the universal brotherhood of every living thing. The

symbol of the clasped hands, explained in the Lodge, reflects his

attitude towards all the world, for he is the comrade of all

created things. He realizes also that his spirit is a glowing,

gleaming jewel which he must enshrine within a holy temple built by

the labor of his hands, the meditation of his heart, and the

aspiration of his soul.

Freemasonry is a philosophy which is essentially creedless. It is

the truer for it. Its brothers bow to truth regardless of the

bearer; they serve light, instead of wrangling over the one who

brings it. In this way they prove that they are seeking to know

better the will and the dictates of the Invincible One. No truer

religion exists than that of world comradeship and brotherhood, for

the purpose of glorifying one God and building for Him a temple of

constructive attitude and noble character.

PROLOGUE

IN THE FIELDS OF CHAOS

The first flush of awakening Life pierced the impenetrable expanse

of Cosmic Night, turning the darkness of negation into the dim

twilight of unfolding being. Silhouetted against the shadowy

gateways of Eternity, the lonely figure of a mystic stranger stood

upon the nebulous banks of swirling substance. Robed in a shimmery

blue mantle of mystery and his head encircled by a golden crown of

dazzling light, the darkness of Chaos fled before the rays that

poured like streams of living fire from his form divine.

From some Cosmos greater far than ours this mystic visitor came,

answering the call of Divinity. From star to star he strode and

from world to universe he was known, yet forever concealed by the

filmy garments of chaotic night. Suddenly the clouds broke and a

wondrous light descended from somewhere among the seething waves of

force; it bathed this lonely form in a radiance celestial, each

sparkling crystal of mist gleaming like a diamond bathed in the

living fire of the Divine.

In the gleaming flame of cosmic light bordered by the dark clouds

of not-being two great forms appeared and a mighty Voice thrilled

eternity, each sparkling atom pulsating with the power of the

Creator's Word* while the great blue-robed figure bowed in awe

before the foot-stool of His Maker as a hand reached down from

heaven, its fingers extended the benediction.

"Of all creation I have chosen you and upon you my seal is placed.

You are the chosen instrument of my hand and I appoint you to be

the Builder of my Temple. You shall raise its pillars and tile its

floor; you shall ornament it with metals and with jewels and you

shall be the master of my workmen. In your hands I place the plans

and here on the tracing board of living substance I have impressed

the plan you are to follow, tracing its every letter and angle in

the fiery lines of my moving finger. Hiram Abiff, chosen builder

of your Father's house, up and to your work. Yonder are the fleecy

clouds, the

* The Creative Fiat, or rate of vibration through which all things

are created.

gray mists of dawn, the gleams of heavenly light, and the darkness

of the sleep of creation. From these shall you build, without the

sound of hammer or the voice of workmen, the temple of your God,

eternal in the heavens. The swirling, ceaseless motion of negation

you shall chain to grind your stones. Among these spirits of

not-being shall you slack your lime and lay your footings; for I

have watched you through the years of your youth; I have guided you

through the days of your manhood. I have weighed you in the

balance and you have not been found wanting. Therefore, to you

give I the glory of work, and here ordain you as the Builder of my

House. Unto you I give the word of the Master Builder; unto you I

give the tools of the craft; unto you I give the power that has

been vested in me. Be faithful unto these things. Bring them back

when you have finished, and I will give you the name known to God

alone. So mote it be."

The great light died out of the heavens, the streaming fingers of

living light vanished in the misty, lonely twilight, and again

covered not-being with its sable mantle. Hiram Abiff again stood

alone, gazing out into the endless ocean of oblivion - nothing but

swirling, seething matter as far as eye could see. Then he

straightened his shoulders and, taking the trestleboard in his

hands and clasping to his heart the glowing Word of the Master,

walked slowly away and was swallowed up in the mists of primordial

dawn.

How may man measure timeless eternity? Ages passed, and the lonely

Builder labored with his plan with only love and humility in his

heart, his hand molding the darkness which he blessed while his

eyes were raised above where the Great Light had shone down from

heaven. In the divine solitude he labored, with no voice to cheer,

no spirit to condemn - alone in the boundless all with the great

chill of the morning mist upon his brow, but his heart still warm

with the light of the Master's Word. It seemed a hopeless task.

No single pair of hands could mold that darkness; no single heart,

no matter how true, could be great enough to project pulsing cosmic

love into the cold mist of oblivion. Though the darkness settled

ever closer about him and the misty fingers of negation twined

round his being, still with divine trust the Builder labored; with

divine hope he laid his footings, and from the boundless clay he

made the molds to cast his sacred ornaments. Slowly the building

grew and dim forms molded by the Master's hand took shape about

him. Three huge, soulless creatures had the Master fashioned, great

beings which loomed like grim spectres in the semi-darkness. They

were three builders he had blessed and now in stately file they

passed before him, and Hiram held out his arms to his creation,

saying, "Brothers, I have built you for your works. I have formed

you to labor with me in the building of the Master's house. You

are the children of my being; I have labored with you, now labor

with me for the glory of our God."

But the spectres laughed. Turning upon their maker and striking him

with his own tools given him by God out of heaven, they left their

Grand Master dying in the midst of his labors, broken and crushed

by the threefold powers of cosmic night. As he lay bleeding at the

feet of his handiwork the martyred Builder raised his eyes to the

seething clouds, and his face was sweet with divine love and cosmic

understanding as he prayed unto the Master who had sent him forth:

"O Master of Workmen, Great Architect of the universe, my labors

are not finished. Why must they always remain undone? I have not

completed the thing for which Thou hast sent me unto being, for my

very creations have turned against me and the tools Thou gavest me

have destroyed me. The children that I formed in love, in their

ignorance have murdered me. Here, Father, is the Word Thou gavest

me now red with my own blood. O Master, I return it to Thee for I

have kept it sacred in my heart. Here are the tools, the tracing

board, and the vessels I have wrought. Around me stand the ruins

of my temple which I must leave. Unto Thee, O God, the divine

Knower of all things, I return them all, realizing that in Thy good

time lies the fulfillment of all things. Thou, O God, knowest our

down-sitting and our uprising and Thou understandest our thoughts

afar off. In Thy name, Father, I have labored and in Thy cause I

die, a faithful builder."

The Master fell back, his upturned face sweet in the last repose of

death, and the light rays no longer pouring from him. The gray

clouds gathered closer as though to form a winding sheet around the

body of their murdered Master.

Suddenly the heavens opened again and a shaft of light bathed the

form of Hiram in a glory celestial. Again the Voice spoke from the

heavens where the Great King sat upon the clouds of creation: "He

is not dead; he is asleep. Who will awaken him? His labors are not

done, and in death he guards the sacred relics more closely than

ever, for the Word and the tracing board are his - I have given

them to him. But he must remain asleep until these three who have

slain him shall bring him back to life, for every wrong must be

righted, and the slayers of my house, the destroyers of my temple,

must labor in the place of their Builder until they raise their

Master from the dead."

The three murderers fell on their knees and raised their hands to

heaven as though to ward off the light which had disclosed their

crime: "O God, great is our sin, for we have slain our Grand

Master, Hiram Abiff! Just is Thy punishment and as we have slain

him we now dedicate our lives to his resurrection. The first was

our human weakness, the second our sacred duty."

"Be it so," answered the Voice from Heaven. The great Light

vanished and the clouds of darkness and mist concealed the body of

the murdered Master. It was swallowed up in the swirling darkness

which left no mark, no gravestone to mark the place where the

Builder had lain.

"O God!" cried the three murderers, "where shall we find our Master

now?"

A hand reached down again from the Great Unseen and a tiny lamp was

handed them, whose oil flame burned silently and clearly in the

darkness. "By this light shall ye seek him whom ye have slain."

The three forms surrounded the light and bowed in prayer and

thanksgiving for this solitary gleam which was to light the

darkness of their way. From somewhere above in the regions of

not-being the great Voice spoke, a thundering Voice that filled

Chaos with its sound: "He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down;

he teeth also as a shadow and continueth not; as the waters fail

from the sea and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth

down and riseth not again. Yet have I compassion upon the children

of my creation; I administer unto them in time of trouble and save

them with an everlasting salvation. Seek ye where the broken twig

lies and the dead stick molds away, where the clouds float together

and the stones rest by the hillside, for all these mark the grave

of Hiram who has carried my Will with him to the tomb. This

eternal quest is yours until ye have found your Builder, until the

cup giveth up its secret, until the grave giveth up its ghosts.

No more shall I speak until ye have found and raised my beloved

Son, and have listened to the words of my Messenger and with Him as

your guide have finished the temple which I shall then inhabit.

Amen."

The gray dawn still lay asleep in the arms of darkness. Out

through the great mystery of not-being all was silence, unknowable.

Through the misty dawn, like strange phantoms of a dream, three

figures wandered over the great Unknown carrying in their hands a

tiny light, the lamp given to them by their Builder's Father. Over

stick and stone and cloud and star they wandered, eternally in

search of a silent grave, stopping again and again to explore the

depths of some mystic recess, praying for liberation from their

endless search; yet bound by their vows to raise the Builder they

had slain, whose grave was marked by the broken twig, and whose

body was laid away in the white winding sheet of death somewhere

over the brow of the eternal hill.

TEMPLE BUILDERS

You are the temple builders of the future. With your hands must be

raised the domes and spires of a coming civilization. Upon the

foundation you have laid, tomorrow shall build a far more noble

edifice. Builders of the temple of character wherein should dwell

an enlightened spirit; truers of the rock of relationship; molders

of those vessels created to contain the oil of life: up, and to the

task appointed! Never before in the history of men have you had the

opportunity that now confronts you. The world waits - waits for the

illuminated one who shall come from between the pillars of the

portico. Humility, hoodwinked and bound, seeks entrance to the

temple of wisdom. Fling wide the gate, and let the worthy enter.

Fling wide the gate, and let the light that is the life of men

shine forth. Hasten to complete the dwelling of the Lord, that the

Spirit of God may come and dwell among His people, sanctified and

ordained according to His law.

CHAPTER I

THE ETERNAL QUEST

The average Mason, as well as the modern student of Masonic ideals,

little realizes the cosmic obligation he takes upon himself when he

begins his search for the sacred truths of Nature as they are

concealed in the ancient and modern rituals. He must not lightly

regard his vows, and if he would not bring upon himself years and

ages of suffering he must cease to consider Freemasonry solely as a

social order only a few centuries old. He must realize that the

ancient mystic teachings as perpetuated in the modern rites are

sacred, and that powers unseen and unrecognized mold the destiny of

those who consciously and of their own free will take upon

themselves the obligations of the Fraternity.

Freemasonry is not a material thing: it is a science of the soul;

it is not a creed or doctrine but a universal expression of the

Divine Wisdom.* 

*This term is used as synonymous with a very secret and sacred

philosophy that has existed for all time, and has been the

inspiration of the great saints and sages of all ages, i. e., the

perfect wisdom of God, revealing itself through a secret hierarchy

of illumined minds.

The coming together of medieval guilds or even the

building of Solomon's temple as it is understood today has little,

if anything, to do with the true origin of Freemasonry, for Masonry

does not deal with personalities. In its highest sense, it is

neither historical nor archaeological, but is a divine symbolic

language perpetuating under certain concrete symbols the sacred

mysteries of the ancients. Only those who see in it a cosmic

study, a life work, a divine inspiration to better thinking, better

feeling, and better living, with the spiritual attainment of

enlightenment as the end, and with the daily life of the true Mason

as the means, have gained even the slightest insight into the true

mysteries of the ancient rites.

The age of the Masonic school is not to be calculated by hundreds

or even thousands of years, for it never had any origin in the

worlds of form. The world as we see it is merely an experimental

laboratory in which man is laboring to build and express greater

and more perfect vehicles. Into this laboratory pour myriads

of rays descending from the cosmic hierarchies.

* These mighty globes and orbs which focus their energies upon mankind and mold

its destiny do so in an orderly manner, each in its own way and

place, and it is the working of these mystic hierarchies in the

universe which forms the pattern around which the Masonic school

has been built, for the true lodge of the Mason is the universe.

Freed of limitations of creed and sect, he stands a master of all

faiths, and those who take up the study of Freemasonry without

realizing the depth, the beauty, and the spiritual power of its

philosophy can never gain anything of permanence from their

studies. The age of the Mystery Schools can be traced by the

student back to the dawn of time, ages and aeons ago, when the

temple of the Solar Man was in the making. That was the first

Temple of the King, and therein were given and laid down the true

mysteries of the ancient lodge, and it was the gods of creation and

the spirits of the dawn who first tiled the Master's lodge.

The initiated brother realizes that his so called symbols and

rituals are merely blinds

*The groups of celestial intelligences governing the creative

processes in cosmos.

fabricated by the wise to perpetuate ideas incomprehensible to the

average individual. He also realizes that few Masons of today know

or appreciate the mystic meaning concealed within these rituals.

With religious faith we perpetuate the form, worshiping it instead

of the life, but those who have not recognized the truth in the

crystallized ritual, those who have not liberated the spiritual

germ from the shell of empty words, are not Masons, regardless of

their physical degrees and outward honors.

In the work we are taking up it is not the intention to dwell upon

the modern concepts of the Craft but to consider Freemasonry as it

really is to those who know, a great cosmic organism whose true

brothers and children are tied together not by spoken oaths but by

lives so lived that they are capable of seeing through the blank

wall and opening the window which is now concealed by the rubbish

of materiality. When this is done and the mysteries of the

universe unfold before the aspiring candidate, then in truth he

discovers what Freemasonry really is. Its material aspects

interest him no longer for he has unmasked the Mystery School which

he is capable of recognizing only when he himself has spiritually

become a member of it.

Those who have examined and studied its ancient lore have no doubt

that Freemasonry, like the universe itself, which is the greatest

of all schools, deals with the unfolding of a three-fold principle;

for all the universe is governed by the same three kings who are

called the builders of the Masonic temple. They are not

personalities but principles, great intelligent energies and powers

which in God, man, and the universe have charge of the molding of

cosmic substance into the habitation of the living king, the

temple built through the ages first of unconscious and then

conscious effort on the part of every individual who is expressing

in his daily life the creative principles of these three kings.

The true brother of the ancient Craft realized that the completion

of the temple he was building to the King of the Universe was a

duty or rather a privilege which he owed to his God, to his

brother, and to himself. He knew that certain steps must be taken

and that his temple must be built according to the plan. Today it

seems that the plan is lost, however, for in the majority of cases

Freemasonry is no longer an operative art but is merely a

speculative idea until each brother, reading the mystery of his

symbols and pondering over the beautiful allegories unfolded in his

ritual, realizes that he himself contains the keys and the plans so

long lost to his Craft and that if he would ever learn Freemasonry

he must unlock its doors with the key wrought from the base metals

of his own being.

True Freemasonry is esoteric; it is not a thing of this world. All

that we have here is a link, a doorway, through which the student

may pass into the unknown. Freemasonry has nothing to do with

things of form save that it realizes form is molded by and

manifests the life it contains. Consequently the student is

seeking so to mold his life that the form will glorify the God

whose temple he is slowly building as he awakens one by one the

workmen within himself and directs them to carry out the plan that

has been given him out of heaven.

So far as it is possible to discover, ancient Freemasonry and the

beautiful cosmic allegories that it teaches, perpetuated through

hundreds of lodges and ancient mysteries, forms the oldest of the

Mystery Schools;* and its 

* This is a term used by the ancients to designate the esoteric

side of their religious ceremonials. The candidate passing through

these mysteries was initiated into the mysteries of Nature and the

arcane side of natural law.

preservation through the ages has not depended upon itself as an

exoteric body of partly evolved individuals but upon a concealed

brotherhood, the exoteric side of Freemasonry. All the great

mystery, Schools have hierarchies upon the spiritual planes of

Nature which are expressing themselves in this world through creeds

and organizations. The true student seeks to lift himself from the

exoteric body upward spiritually until he joins the esoteric group

which, without a lodge on the physical plane of Nature, is far

greater than all the lodges of which it is the central fire. The

spiritual instructors of humanity are forced to labor in the

concrete world with things comprehensible to the concrete mind, and

there man begins to comprehend the meaning of the allegories and

symbols which surround his exoteric work as soon as he prepares

himself to receive them. The true Mason realizes that the work of

the Mystery Schools in the world is of an inclusive rather than an

exclusive nature, and that the only lodge which is b road enough to

express his ideals is one whose dome is the heavens, whose pillars

are the corners of creation, whose checker-board floor is composed

of the crossing currents of human emotion and whose altar is the

human heart. Creeds cannot bind the true seeker for truth.

Realizing the unity of all truth, the Mason also realizes that the

hierarchies laboring with him have given him in his varying degrees

the mystic spiritual rituals of all the Mystery Schools in the

world, and if he would fill his place in the plan he must not

enter this sacred study for what he can get out of it but that he

may learn how to serve.

In Freemasonry is concealed the mystery of creation, the answer to

the problem of existence, and the path the student must tread in

order to join those who are really the living powers behind the

thrones of modern national and international affairs. The true

student realizes most of all that the taking of degrees does not

make a man a Mason. A Mason is not appointed; he is evolved and he

must realize that the position he holds in the exoteric lodge means

nothing compared to his position in the spiritual lodge of life.

He must forever discard the idea that he can be told or instructed

in the sacred Mysteries or that his being a member of an

organization improves him in any way. He must realize that his

duty is to build and evolve the sacred teachings in his own being:

that nothing but his own purified being can unlock the door to the

sealed libraries of human consciousness, and that his Masonic rites

must eternally be speculative until he makes them operative by

living the life of the mystic Mason. His karmic responsibilities

increase with his opportunities. Those who are surrounded with

knowledge and opportunity for self-improvement and make nothing of

these opportunities are the lazy workmen who will be spiritually,

if not physically, cast out of the temple of the king.

The Masonic order is not a mere social organization, but is

composed of all those who have banded themselves together to learn

and apply the principles of mysticism and the occult rites. They

are (or should be) philosophers, sages and sober-minded individuals

who have dedicated themselves upon the Masonic altar and vowed by

all they hold dear that the world shall be better, wiser, and

happier because they have lived. Those who enter these mystic

rites and pass between the pillars seeking either prestige or

commercial advantage are blasphemers, and while in this world we

may count them as successful, they are the cosmic failures who have

barred themselves out from the true rite whose keynote is

unselfishness and whose workers have renounced the things of earth.

In ancient times many years of preparation were required before the

neophyte was permitted to enter the temple of the Mysteries. In

this way the shallow, the curious, the faint of heart, and those

unable to withstand the temptations of life were automatically

eliminated by their inability to meet the requirements for

admission. The successful candidate who did pass between the

pillars entered the temple, keenly realizing his sublime

opportunity, his divine obligation, and the mystic privilege which

he had earned for himself through years of special preparation.

Only those are truly Masons who enter their temple in reverence,

who seek not the ephemeral things of life but the treasures which

are eternal, whose sole desire is to know the true mystery of the

Craft that they may join as honest workmen those who have gone

before as builders of the Universal Temple. The Masonic ritual is

not a ceremony, but a life to be lived. Those alone are truly

Masons who, dedicating their lives and their fortunes upon the 

altar of the living flame, undertake the construction of the one

universal building of which they are the workmen and their God the

living Architect. When we have Masons like this the Craft will

again be operative, the flaming triangle will shine forth with

greater lustre, the dead builder will rise from his tomb, and the

Lost Word so long concealed from the profane will blaze forth again

with the power that makes all things new.

In the pages that follow have been set down a number of thoughts

for the study and consideration of temple builders, craftsmen and

artisans alike. They are the keys which, if only read, will leave

the student still in ignorance but, if lived, will change the

speculative Masonry of today into the operative Masonry of

tomorrow, when each builder, realizing his own place, will see

things which he never saw before, not because they were not there

but because he was blind. And there are none so blind as those who

will not see.

THOUGHTLESSNESS

The noblest tool of the Mason is his mind, but its value is

measured by the use made of it. Thoughtful in all things, the

aspiring candidate to divine wisdom attains reality in sincere

desire, in meditation, and in silence. Let the keynote of the

Craft, and of the Ritual, be written in blazing letters: THINK OF

ME. What is the meaning of this mystic maze of symbols, rites and

rituals? THINK! What does life mean, with the criss-crossings of

human relationship, the endless pageantry of qualities masquerading

 in a carnival of fools? THINK! What is the plan behind it all,

and who the planner? Where dwells the Great Architect, and what is

the tracing board upon which he designs? THINK! What is the human

soul, and why the endless yearning to ends unknown, along pathways

where each must wander unaccompanied? Why mind, why soul, why

spirit, and in truth, why anything? THINK! Is there an answer? If

so, where will the truth be found? Think, Brothers of the Craft,

think deeply; for if truth exists, you have it, and if truth be

within the reach of living creature, what other goal is worth the

struggle?

CHAPTER II

THE CANDIDATE

There comes a time in the growth of every living individual thing

when it realizes with dawning consciousness that it is a prisoner.

While apparently free to move and have its being, the struggling

life cognizes through ever greater vehicles its own limitations.

It is at this point that man cries out with greater insistence to

be liberated from the binding ties which, though invisible to

mortal eyes, still chain him with bonds far more terrible than

those of any physical prison.

Many have read the story of the prisoner of Chillon who paced back

and forth in the narrow confines of his prison cell, while the blue

waters rolled ceaselessly above his head and the only sound that

broke the stillness of his eternal night was the constant swishing

and lapping of the waves. We pity the prisoner in his physical

tomb and we are sad at heart, for we know how life loves liberty.

But there is one prisoner whose plight is far worse than those of

earth. He has not even the narrow confines of a prison cell around

Him; He cannot pace ceaselessly to and fro and wear ruts in the

cobblestones of His dungeon floor. That eternal Prisoner is Life

incarnate within the dark stone walls of matter, with not a single

ray to brighten the blackness of His fate. He fights eternally,

praying in the dark confines of gloomy walls for light and

opportunity. This is the eternal Prisoner who, through the

ceaseless ages of cosmic unfoldment, through forms unnumbered an d

species now unknown, strives eternally to liberate Himself and

gain self conscious expression, the birthright of every created

thing. He awaits the day when, standing upon the rocks that now

form His shapeless tomb, He may raise His arms to heaven, bathed in

the sunlight of spiritual freedom, free to join the sparkling atoms

and dancing light-beings released from the bonds of prison wall and

tomb.

Around Life - that wondrous germ in the heart of every living

thing, that sacred Prisoner in His gloomy cell, that Master Builder

laid away in the grave of matter - has been built the wondrous

legend of the Holy Sepulchre. Under allegories unnumbered, the

mystic philosophers of the ages, have perpetuated this wonderful

story, and among the Craft Masons it forms the mystic ritual of

Hiram, the Master Builder, murdered in his temple by the very

builders who should have served him as he labored to perfect the

dwelling place of his God.

Matter is the tomb. It is the dead wall of substance not yet

awakened into the pulsating energies of Spirit. It exists in many

degrees and forms, not only in the chemical elements which form the

solids of our universe but in finer and more subtle substances.

These, though expressing through emotion and thought, are still

beings of the world of form. These substances form the great cross

of matter which opposes the growth of all things and by opposition

makes all growth possible. It is the great cross o f hydrogen,

nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon upon which even the life germ in

protoplasm is crucified and suspended in agony. These substances

are incapable of giving it adequate expression. The Spirit within

cries out for freedom: freedom to be, to express, to manifest its

true place in the Great Plan of cosmic unfoldment.

It is this great yearning within the heart of man which sends him

slowly onward toward the gate of the Temple; it is this inner urge

for greater understanding and greater light which brought into

being through the law of necessity the great cosmic Masonic Lodge

dedicated to those seeking union with the Powers of Light that

their prison walls might be removed. This shell cannot be

discarded: it must be raised into union with the Life; each dead,

crystallized atom in the human body must be set vibrating and

spinning to a higher rate of consciousness. Through purification,

through knowledge, and through service to his fellow man the

candidate sequentially unfolds these mystic properties, building

better and more perfect bodies through which his higher life

secures even greater manifestation. The expression of man through

constructive thought, emotion, and action liberates the higher

nature from bodies which in their crystallized states are incapable

 of giving him his natural opportunities.

In Freemasonry this crystallized substance of matter is called the

grave and represents the Holy Sepulchre. This is the grave within

which the lost Builder lies and with Him are the plans of the

Temple and the Master's Word, and it is this builder, our Grand

Master, whom we must seek and raise from the dead. This noble Son

of Light cries out to us in every expression of matter. Every

stick and stone marks His resting place, and the sprig of acacia

promises that through the long winter of spiritual darkness when

the sun does not shine for man, this Light still awaits the day of

liberation when each one of us shall raise Him by the grip of the

Grand Master, the true grip of a Master Mason. We cannot hear this

Voice that calls eternally, but we feel its inner urge. A great

unknown something pulls at our heartstrings. As the ages roll by,

the deep desire to be greater, to live better, and to think God's

thoughts, builds within ourselves the qualifications of a

candidate who, when asked why he takes the path , would truly

answer if he knew mentally the things he feels: "I hear a voice

that cries out to me from flora and fauna, from the stones, from

the clouds, from the very heaven itself. Each fiery atom spinning

and twisting in Cosmos cries out to me with the voice of my Master.

I can hear Hiram Abiff, my Grand Master, crying out in his agony,

the agony of life hidden within the darkness of its prison walls,

seeking for the expression which I have denied it, laboring, to

bring closer the day of its liberation , and I have learned to know

that I am responsible for those walls. My daily actions are the

things which as ruffians and traitors are murdering my God."

There are many legends of the Holy Sepulchre which for so many

centuries had been in the hands of the infidel and which the

Christian worlds sought to retake in the days of the Crusades. Few

Masons realize that this Holy Sepulchre, or tomb, is in reality

negation and crystallization - matter that has sealed within itself

the Spirit of Life which must remain in darkness until the growth

of each individual being gives it walls of glowing gold and changes

its stones into windows. As we develop better and better vehicles

of expression, these walls slowly expand until at last Spirit rises

triumphant from its tomb and, blessing the very walls that confined

it, raises them to union with itself.

We may first consider the murderers of Hiram. These three

ruffians, who, when the Builder seeks to leave his temple, strike

him with the tools of his own Craft until finally they slay him and

bring the temple down in destruction upon their own heads,

symbolize the three expressions of our own lower natures which are

in truth the murderers of the good within ourselves. These three

may be called thought, desire, and action. When purified and

transmuted they are three glorious avenues through which may

 manifest the great life power of the three kings, the glowing builders

of the Cosmic Lodge manifesting in this world as spiritual thought,

constructive emotion, and useful daily labor in the various places

and positions where we find ourselves while carrying on the

Master's work. These three form the Flaming Triangle which

glorifies every living Mason, but when crystallized and perverted

they form a triangular prison through which the light cannot shine

and the Life is forced to languish in the dim darkness of despair,

until man himself through his higher understanding liberates the

energies and powers which are indeed the builders and glorifiers of

his Father's House.

Now let us consider how these three fiery kings of the dawn became,

through perversion of their manifestation by man, the ruffians who

murdered Hiram - the energizing powers of cosmos which course

through the blood of every living being, seeking to beautify and

perfect the temple they would build according to the plan laid down

on the tracing board by the Master Architect of the universe.

First in the mind is one of the three kings, or rather we shall say

a channel through which he manifests; for King Solomon is the

power of mind which, perverted, becomes a destroyer who tears down

with the very powers which nourish and build. The right

application of thought, when seeking the answer to the cosmic

problem of destiny, liberates man's spirit which soars above the

concrete through that wonderful power of mind, with its dreams and

its ideals.

When man's thoughts rise upon the wings of aspiration, when he

pushes back the darkness with the strength of reason and logic,

then indeed the builder is liberated from his dungeon and the light

pours in, bathing him with life and power. This light enables us

to seek more clearly the mystery of creation and to find with

greater certainty our place in the Great Plan, for as man unfolds

his bodies he gains talents with which he can explore the mysteries

of Nature and search for the hidden workings of the Divine.

Through these powers the Builder is liberated and his consciousness

goes forth conquering and to conquer. These higher ideals, these

spiritual concepts, these altruistic, philanthropic, educative

applications of thought power glorify the Builder; for they give

the power of expression and those who can express themselves are

free. When man can mold his thoughts, his emotions, and his actions

into faithful expressions of his highest ideals then liberty is

his, for ignorance is the darkness of Chaos and knowledge is the

light of Cosmos.

In spite of the fact that many of us live apparently to gratify the

desires of the body and as servants of the lower nature, still

there is within each of us a power which may remain latent for a

great length of time. This power lives eternities perhaps, and yet

at some time during our growth there comes a great yearning for

freedom, when, having discovered that the pleasures of sense

gratification are eternally elusive and unsatisfying, we make an

examination of ourselves and begin to realize that there a re

greater reasons for our being. It is sometimes reason, sometimes

suffering, sometimes a great desire to be helpful, that brings out

the first latent powers which show that one long wandering in the

darkness is about to take the path that leads to Light. Having

lived life in all its experiences, he has learned to realize that

all the manifestations of being, all the various experiences

through which he passes, are steps leading in one direction; that,

consciously or unconsciously, all souls are being le d to the

portico of the temple where for the first time they see and realize

the glory of Divinity. It is then that they understand the age-old

allegory of the martyred Builder and feel his power within

themselves crying out from the prison of materiality. Nothing else

seems worth while; and, regardless of cost, suffering, or the

taunts of the world, the candidate slowly ascends the steps that

lead to the temple eternal. The reason that governs Cosmos he does

not know, the laws which mold his being he does not realize, but

he does know that somewhere behind the veil of human ignorance

there is an eternal light toward which step by step he must labor.

With his eyes fixed on the heavens above and his hands clasped in

prayer he passes slowly as a candidate up the steps. In fear and

trembling, yet with a divine realization of good, he raps on the

door and awaits in silence the answer from within.

CHAPTER III

THE ENTERED APPRENTICE There are three grand steps in the

unfoldment of the human soul before it completes the dwelling place

of the spirit. These have been caged respectively youth, manhood,

and old age; or, as the Mason would say, the Entered Apprentice,

the Fellow Craft, and the Master Builder. All life passes through

these three grand stages of human consciousness. They can be

listed as the man on the outside looking in, the man going in, and

the man inside. The path of human life is governed as all things

are by the laws of analogy, and as at birth we start our

pilgrimmage through youth, manhood, and old age, so the spiritual

consciousness of man in his cosmic path of unfoldment passes from

unconsciousness to perfect consciousness in the Grand Lodge of the

universe. Before the initiation of the Entered Apprentice degree

can be properly understood and appreciated, certain requirements

must be considered, not merely those of the physical world but also

those of the spiritual world.

The Mason must realize that his true initiation is a spiritual and

not a physical ritual, and that his initiation into the living

temple of the spiritual hierarchy regulating Freemasonry may not

occur until years after he has taken the physical degree, or

spiritually he may be a Grand Master before he comes into the

world. There are probably few instances in the history of

Freemasonry where the spiritual ordination of the aspiring seeker

took place at the same time as the physical initiation, because the

t rue initiation depends upon the cultivation of certain soul

qualities - an individual and personal matter which is left

entirely to the volition of the mystic Mason and which he must

carry out in silence and alone.

The court of the tabernacle of the ancient Jews was divided into

three parts: the outer court, the holy place, and the most Holy of

Holies. These three divisions represent the three grand divisions

of human consciousness. The degree of Entered Apprentice is

acquired when the student signifies his intention to take the rough

ashlar which he cuts from the quarry and prepares for the truing of

the Fellow Craft.

In other words, the first degree is really one of preparation; it

is a material step dealing with material things, for all spiritual

life must be raised upon a material foundation.

Seven is the number of the Entered Apprentice as it relates to the

seven liberal arts and sciences, and these are the powers with

which the Entered Apprentice must labor before he is worthy to go

onward into the more elevated and advanced degrees. They are much

mistaken who believe that they can reach the spiritual planes of

Nature without first passing through and molding matter into the

expression of spiritual power; for the first stage in the growth of

a Master Mason is mastery of the concrete condition s of life and

the developments of sense centers which will later become channels

for the expression of spiritual truths.

All growth is a gradual procedure carried on in an orderly,

masterly way, as exemplified by the opening and closing of a lodge.

The universe is divided into planes and these planes are divided

from each other by the rates of vibration which pass through them.

As the spiritual consciousness progresses through the chain, the

lower lose connection with it when it has raised itself above their

level, until finally only the Grand Masters are capable of

remaining in session, and unknown even to the Master Mason it

finally passes back again to the spiritual hierarchy from which it

came.

Action is the keynote of the Entered Apprentice lodge. All growth

is the result of exercise and the intensifying of vibratory rates.

It is through exercise that the muscles of the human body are

strengthened; it is through the seven liberal arts and sciences

that the human mind receives certain impulses which, in turn,

stimulate internal centers of consciousness. These centers of

consciousness, through still greater development, will later give

fuller expression to these inner powers; but the Entered Apprentice

has for his first duty the awakening of these powers, and,

like the youth of whom he is a symbol, his ideals and labors must

be tied closely to concrete things. For him both points of the

compasses are under the square; for him the reasons which manifest

through the heart and mind - the two polarities of expression are

darkened and concealed beneath the square which measures the block

of bodies. He knows not the reason why; his work is t o follow the

directions of those whose knowledge is greater than his own; but

as the result of the application of energies, through action and

reaction he slowly builds and evolves the powers of discrimination

and the strength of character which mark the Fellow Craft degree.

It is obvious that the rough ashlar symbolizes the body. It also

represents cosmic root substance which is taken out of the quarry

of the universe by the first expressions of intelligence and molded

by them into ever finer and more perfect lines until finally it

becomes the perfect stone for the Builder's temple.

How can emotion manifest save through form? How can mind manifest

until the intricately evolved brain cells of matter have raised

their organic quality to form the ground-work upon which other

things may be based? All students of human mature realize that

every expression of man depends upon organic quality; that in every

living thing this differs; and that the fineness of this matter is

the certain indication of growth - mental, physical or spiritual.

True to the doctrines of his Craft, the Entered Apprentice must

beautify his temple. He must build within himself by his actions,

by the power of his hand and the tools of his Craft, certain

qualities which make possible his initiation into the higher

degrees of the spiritual lodge.

We know that the cube block is symbolic of the tomb. It is also

well known that the Entered Apprentice is incapable of rolling away

the stone or of transmuting it into a greater or higher thing; but

it is his privilege to purify and glorify that stone and begin the

great work of preparing it for the temple of his King.

Few realize that since the universe is made up of individuals in

various stages of development, responsibility is consequently

individual, and everything which man wishes to gain he must himself

build and maintain. If he is to use his finer bodies for the

purpose for which they were intended, he must treat them well, that

they may be good and faithful servants in the great work he is

preparing for.

The quarries represent the limitless powers of natural resources.

They are symbolic of the practically endless field of human

opportunity; they symbolize the cosmic substances from which man

must gather the stones for his temple. At this stage in his

growth, the Entered Apprentice is privileged to gather the stones

which he wishes to true during his progress through the lodge, for

at this point he symbolizes the youth who is choosing his life

work. He represents the human ego who in the dawn of time gathered

many blocks and cubes and broken stones from the Great Quarry.

These rough and broken stones that as yet will not fit into

anything are the partially evolved powers and senses with which he

labors. In the first state he must gather these materials, and

those who have not gathered them can never true them. During the

involuntary period of human consciousness, the Entered Apprentice

in the Great Lodge was man, who labored with these rough blocks,

seeking the tools and the power with which to true them . As he

evolves down through the ages, he gains the tools and cosmically

passes on to the degree of Fellow Craft where he trues his ashlar

in harmony with the plans upon the Master's tracing board. This

rough, uncut ashlar has three dimensions, representative of the

three ruffians who at this stage are destroyers of the fourth

dimensional life concealed within the ugly, ill-shaped stone.

The lost key of the Entered Apprentice is service. Why, he may not

ask; when, he does not know. His work is to do, to act, to express

himself in some way - constructively if possible, but destructively

rather than not at all. Without action, he loses his great work;

without tools, which symbolize the body, he cannot act in an

organized manner. Consequently, it is necessary to master the arts

and sciences which place in his hands intelligent tools for the

expression of energy. Beauty is the keynote to h is ideal. With

his concrete ideals he must beautify all with which he comes in

contact, so that the works of his hand may be acceptable in the

eyes of the Great Architect of the Universe.

His daily life, in home, business, and society, together with the

realization of the fundamental unity of each with all, form the

base upon which the aspiring candidate may raise a greater

superstructure. In truth he must live the life, the result of

which is the purification of his body, so that the more attenuated

forces of the higher degrees may express themselves through the

finer sensitivity of the receiving pole within himself. When he

reaches this stage in his growth, he is spiritually worthy to 

consider advancement into a higher degree. This advancement is not

the result of election or ballot, but is an automatic process in

which, having sensitized his consciousness by his life, he thereby

attunes himself to the next succeeding plane of expression. All

initiation is the result of adjustments of the evolving life to the

physical, emotional, and mental planes of consciousness through

which it passes.

We may now consider the spiritual requirements of one who feels

that he would mystically correlate himself with that great

spiritual fraternity which, concealed behind the exoteric rite,

forms the living power of the Entered Apprentice lodge:

1. It is essential that the Entered Apprentice should have studied

sufficiently the subject of anatomy to have at least a general idea

of the physical body, for the entire degree is based upon the

mystery of form. The human body is the highest manifestation of

form which he is capable of analyzing. Consequently, he must

devote himself to the study of his own being and its mysteries and

complexities.

2. The Entered Apprentice must realize that his body is the living

temple of the living God and treat it accordingly; for when he

abuses or mistreats it he breaks the sacred obligations which he

must assume before he can ever hope to understand the true

mysteries of the Craft. The breaking of his pact with the higher

Life evolving within himself unfailingly invokes the retributive

agencies of Nature.

3. He must study the problem of the maintenance of bodies through

food, clothing, breathing, and other necessities, as all of these

are important steps in the Entered Apprentice lodge. Those who eat

immoderately, dress improperly, and use only about one-third of

their lung capacity can never have the physical efficiency

necessary for the fullest expression of the higher Life.

4. He must grow physically and in the expression of concrete

things. Human relationships must be idealized at this time, and he

must seek to unfold all unselfish qualities which are necessary for

the harmonious working of the Mason and his fellow men on the

physical plane of Nature.

5. He must seek to round off all inequalities. He can best do this

by balancing his mental and physical organisms through the

application and study of the seven liberal arts and sciences.

Until he is relatively master of these principles on the highest

plane within his own being, he cannot hope spiritually to attract

to himself, through the qualities of his own character, the

life-giving ray of the Fellow Craft. When he reaches this point,

however, he is spiritually ready to hope for membership in a more

advanced degree.

The Mason must realize that his innermost motives are the index of

his real self, and those who allow social position, financial or

business considerations or selfish and materialistic ideals, to

lead them into the Masonic Brotherhood have thereby automatically

separated themselves from the Craft. They can never do any harm to

Freemasonry by joining because they cannot get in. Ensconced within

the lodge, they may feel that they have deceived the Grand Master

of the Universe, but when the spiritual lodge meets to carry on

the true work of the Craft, they are disqualified and absent.

Watch fobs, lapel badges, and other insignia do not make Masons;

neither does the ritual ordain them. Masons are evolved through

the self-conscious effort to live up to the highest ideals within

themselves; their lives are the sole insignia of their rank,

greater by far than any visible, tangible credential.

Bearing this in mind, it is possible for the unselfish, aspiring

soul to become spiritually and liberally vouched for by the centers

of consciousness as an Entered Apprentice. It means he has taken

the first grand step on the path of personal liberation. He is now

symbolized as the child with the smiling face, for with the

simplicity of a child he places himself under the protection of his

great spiritual Father, willing and glad to obey each of His

commands. Having reached this point and having done the best it

was possible for him to do, he is in position to hope that the

powers that be, moving in their mysterious manner, may find him

worthy to undertake the second great step in spiritual liberation.

CHAPTER IV 

THE FELLOW CRAFT

Life manifests not only through action on the physical plane, but

through human emotion and sentiment. This is the type of energy

taken up by the student when he starts his labors in the Fellow

Craft. From youth with its smiling face, he passes on to the

greater responsibilities of manhood.

On the second step of the temple stands a soldier dressed in

shining armor, but his sword is sheathed and a book is in his hand.

He is symbolic of strength, the energy of Mars, and the wonderful

step in spiritual unfoldment which we know as Fellow Craft.

Through each one of us course the fiery rays of human emotion, a

great seething cauldron of power behind each expression of human

energy. Like spirited horses chafing at the bit, like hounds eager

for the chase, the emotional powers cannot be held in check, but

break the walls of restraint and pour forth as fiery expressions of

dynamic energy. This great principle of emotion we know as the

second murderer of Hiram. Through the perversion of human emotions

there comes into the world untold sorrow, which through reaction,

manifests in the mental and physical bodies.

It is strange how divine powers may become perverted until each

expression and urge becomes a ruffian and a murderer. The divine

compassion of the gods manifests in this world of form very

differently than in the realms of light. Divine compassion is

energized by the same influxes as mortal passions and the lusts of

earth. The spiritual light rays of Cosmos - the Fire Princes of

the Dawn - which seethe and surge through the unregenerate man, are

the impulses which he perverts to murder and hate. The ceaseless

power of Chaos, the seething pinwheel spirals of perpetual motion,

whose majestic cadences are the music of the spheres, are energized

by the same great power that man uses to destroy the highest and

best. The same mystic power that keeps the planets in their orbits

around the solar body, the same energy that keeps each electron

spinning and whirling, the same energy that is building the temple

of God, is now a merciless slave-driver which , unmastered and

uncurbed, strikes the Compassionate One and sends him reeling

backward into the darkness of his prison. Man does not listen to

that little voice which speaks to him in ever loving, ever

sorrowful tones. This voice speaks of the peace accompanying the

constructive application of energy which he must chain if he would

master the powers of creation. How long will it take King Hiram of

Tyre, the warrior on the second step, symbolic of the Fellow Craft

of the Cosmic Lodge, to teach mankind the lessons of self-mastery?

The teacher can do it only as he daily depicts the miseries which

are the result of uncurbed appetites. The strength of man was not

given to be used destructively but that he might build a temple

worthy to be the dwelling place of the Great Architect of the

universe. God is glorifying himself through the individualized

portions of himself, and is slowly teaching these individualized

portions to understand and glorify the whole.

The day has come when Fellow Craftsmen must know and apply their

knowledge. The lost key to their grade is the mastery of emotion,

which places the energy of the universe at their disposal. Man can

only expect to be entrusted with great power by proving his ability

to use it constructively and selflessly. When the Mason learns

that the key to the warrior on the block is the proper application

of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the mystery of his

Craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and

before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to

properly apply energy. He must follow in the footsteps of his

forefather, Tuba-Cain, who with the mighty strength of the war god

hammered his sword into a plowshare. Incessant vigilance over

thought, action, and desire is indispensable to those who wish to

make progress in the unfolding of their own being, and the Fellow

Craft's degree is the degree of transmutation. The hand that slays

must lift the fallen, while the lips given to cursing must be

taught to pray. The heart that hates must learn the mystery of

compassion, as the result of a deeper and more perfect

understanding of man's relation to his brother. The firm, kind

hand of spirit must curb the flaming powers of emotion with an iron

grip. In the realization and application of these principles lies

the key of the Fellow Craft.

In this degree, the two points of the compass (one higher than the

other), symbolize the heart and mind, and with the expression of

the higher emotions the heart point of the compass is liberated

from the square, which is an instrument used to measure the block

of matter and therefore symbolizes form.

A large percentage of the people of the world at the present time

are passing through, spiritually, the degree of the Fellow Craft,

with its five senses. The sense perceptions come under the control

of the emotional energies, therefore the development of the senses

is necessary to the constructive expression of the Fellow Craft

power. Man must realize that all the powers which his many years

of need have earned for him have come in order that through them he

may liberate more fully the prisoner within his own being. As the

Fellow Craft degree is the middle of the three, the spiritual duty

of each member is to reach the point of poise or balance, which is

always secured between extremes. The mastery of expression is also

to be found in this degree. The keywords of the Fellow Craft may

be briefly defined as compassion, poise, and transmutation.

In the Fellow Craft degree is concealed the dynamo of human life.

The Fellow Craft is the worker with elemental fire, which it is his

duty to transmute into spiritual light. The heart is the center of

his activity and it is while in this degree that the human side of

the nature with its constructive emotions should be brought out and

emphasized. But all of these expressions of the human heart must

become transmuted into the emotionless compassion of the gods, who

despite the suffering of the moment, gaze down upon mankind and see

that it is good.

When the candidate feels that he has reached a point where he is

able to manifest every energizing current and fire-flame in a

constructive, balanced manner and has spiritually lifted the heart

sentiments of the mystic out of the cube of matter, he may then

expect that the degree of Master Mason is not far off, and so may

look forward eagerly to the time of his spiritual ordination into

the higher degree. He should now study himself and realize that he

cannot receive promotion into the spiritual lodge until his heart

is attuned to a superior, spiritual influx from the causal planes

of consciousness.

The following requirements are necessary before the student can

spiritually say that he is a member of the ancient and accepted

rite of the Fellow Craft:

1. The mastery of emotional outbreaks of all kinds, poise under

trying conditions, kindness in the face of unkindness, and

simplicity with its accompanying power. These points show that the

seeker is worthy of being taught by a Fellow Craftsman.

2. The mastery of the animal energies, the curbing of passion and

desire, and the control of the lower nature mark the faithful

attempts on the part of the student to be worthy of the Fellow

Craft.

3. The understanding and mastery of the creative forces, the

consecration of them to the unfolding of the spiritual nature, and

a proper understanding of their physical application, are necessary

steps at this stage of the student's growth.

4. The transmutation of personal affection into impersonal

compassion shows that the Fellow Craftsman truly understands his

duties and is living in a manner worthy of his order.

Personalities cannot bind the true second degree member, for having

raised one point of the compasses he now realizes that all personal

manifestations are governed by impersonal principles.

5. At this point the candidate consecrates the five senses to the

study of human problems with the unfolding of sense centers as the

motive; for he realizes that the five senses are keys, the proper

application of which will give him material for spiritual

transmutation if he will apply to them the common divisor of

analogy.

The Entered Apprentice may be termed a materialistic degree. The

Fellow Craft is religious and mystical, while the Master Mason is

occult or philosophical. Each of these is a degree in the

unfoldment of a connected life and intelligence, revealing in ever

fuller expression the gradual liberation of the Master from the

trianglar cell of threefold negation which marks the early stage of

individualization.

CHAPTER V THE MASTER MASON

On the upper steps of spiritual unfoldment stands the Master Mason,

who spiritually represents the graduate from the school of esoteric

learning. In the ancient symbols he is represented as an old man

leaning upon a staff, his long white beard upon his chest, and his

deep, piercing eyes sheltered by the brows of a philosopher. He is

in truth old, not in years, but in wisdom and understanding, which

are the only true measurement of age. Through years and lives of

labor he has found the staff of life and truth upon which he

leans. He no longer depends upon the words of others but upon the

still voice that speaks from the heart of his own being. There is

no more glorious position that a man may hold than that of a Master

Builder, who has risen by labor through the degrees of human

consciousness. Time is the differentiation of eternity devised by

man to measure the passage of human events. On the spiritual

planes of Nature it is the space or distance between the stages of

spiritual growth and hence is not measurable by material means.

Many a child comes into this world a Grand Master of the Masonic

School, while many a revered and honored brother passes silently to

rest without having gained admittance to its gate. The Master

Mason is one whose life is full, pressed down and brimming over

with the experience he has gained in his slow pilgrimage up the

winding stairs.

The Master Mason embodies the power of the human mind, that

connecting link which binds heaven and earth together in an endless

chain. His spiritual light is greater because he has evolved a

higher vehicle for its expression. Above even constructive action

and emotion soars the power of thought which swiftly flies on wings

to the source of Light. The mind is the highest form of his human

expression and he passes into the great darkness of the inner room

illuminated only by the fruits of reason. The glorious privileges

of a Master Mason are in keeping with his greater knowledge and

wisdom. From the student he has blossomed forth as the teacher;

from the kingdom of those who follow he has joined that little

group who must always lead the way. For him the Heavens have

opened and the Great Light has bathed him in its radiance. The

Prodigal Son, so long a wanderer in the regions of darkness, has

returned again to his Father's house. The voice speaks from the

Heavens, its power thrilling the Master until hi s own being seems

filled with its divinity, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom

I am well pleased." The ancients taught that the sun was not a

source of light, life, or power, but a medium through which life

and light were reflected into physical substance. The Master Mason

is in truth a sun, a great reflector of light, who radiates through

his organism, purified by ages of preparation, the glorious power

which is the light of the Lodge. He, in truth, has become the

spokesman of the Most High. He stands between the glowing fire

light and the world. Through him passes Hydra, the great snake,

and from its month there pours to man the light of God. His symbol

is the rising sun, for in him the globe of day has indeed risen in

all its splendor from the darkness of the night, illuminating the

immortal East with the first promise of approaching day.

With a sigh the Master lays aside his tools. For him the temple is

nearing completion, the last stones are being placed, and he slakes

his lime with a vague regret as he sees dome and minaret rise

through the power of his handiwork. The true Master does not long

for rest, and as he sees the days of his labor close, a sadness

weighs upon his heart. Slowly the brothers of his Craft leave him,

each going his respective way; and, climbing step by step, the

Master stands alone on the pinnacle of the temple. One stone must

yet be placed, but this he cannot find. Somewhere it lies

concealed. In prayer he kneels, asking the powers that be to aid

him in his search. The light of the sun shines upon him and bathes

him in a splendor celestial. Suddenly a voice speaks from the

Heavens, saying, "The temple is finished and in my faithful Master

is found the missing stone."

Both points of the compasses are now lifted from under the square.

The divine is liberated from its cube; heart and mind alike are

liberated from the symbol of mortality, and as emotion and thought

they unite for the glorification of the greatest and the highest.

Then the Sun and Moon are united and the Hermetic Degree is

consummated.

The Master Mason is afforded opportunities far beyond the reach of

ordinary man, but he must not fail to realize that with every

opportunity comes a cosmic responsibility. It is worse by far to

know and not to do than never to have known at all. He realizes

that the choice of avoiding responsibility is no longer his and

that for him all problems must be met and solved. The only joy in

the heart of the Master is the joy of seeing the fruits of his

handiwork. It can be truly said of the Master that through

suffering he has learned to be glad, through weeping he has learned

to smile, and through dying he has learned to live. The

purification and probationship of his previous degrees have so

spiritualized his being that he is in truth a glorious example of

God's Plan for His children. The greatest sermon he can preach,

the greatest lesson he can teach, is that of standing forth a

living proof of the Eternal Plan. The Master Mason is not

ordained: h e is the natural product of cause and effect, and none

but those who live the cause can produce the effect. The Master

Mason, if he be truly a Master, is in communication with the unseen

powers that move the destinies of life. As the Eldest Brother of

the lodge, he is the spokesman for the spiritual hierarchies of his

Craft. He no longer follows the direction of others, but on his

own tracing board he lays out the plans which his brothers are to

follow. He realizes this, and so lives that every line and plan

which he gives out is inspired by the divine with in himself. His

glorious opportunity to be a factor in the growth of others comes

before all else. At the seat of mercy he kneels, a faithful

servant of the Highest within himself and worthy to be given

control over the lives of others by having first controlled

himself.

Much is said concerning the loss of the Master's Word and how the

seekers go out to find it but bring back only substitutes. The

true Master knows that those who go out can never find the secret

trust. He alone can find it who goes within. The true Master

Builder has never lost the Word but has cherished it in the

spiritual locket of his own being. From those who have the eyes to

see, nothing is concealed; to those who have the right to know, all

things are open books. The true Word of the three Grand Masters

has never been concealed from those who have the right to know it

nor has it ever been revealed to those who have not prepared a

worthy shrine to contain it. The Master knows, for he is a Temple

Builder. Within the setting of his own bodies, the Philosopher's

Stone is placed; for in truth it is the heart of the Phoenix, that

strange bird which rises with renewed youth from the ashes of its

burned body. When the Master's heart is as pure and white as the

diamond that he wears, he will then become a living stone-the crown

jewel in the diadem of his Craft.

The Word is found when the Master himself is ordained by the living

hand of God, cleansed by living water, baptized by living fire, a

Priest-King after the Order of Melchizedek, who is above the law.

The great work of the Master Mason can be called the art of balance.

To him is given the work of balancing the triangle that it may

blaze forth with the glory of the Divine Degree. The triple

energies of thought, desire, and action must be united in a

harmonious blending of expression. He holds in his hands the

triple keys; he wears the triple crown of the ancient Magus, for he

is in truth the King of heaven, earth, and hell. Salt, sulphur,

and mercury are the elements of his work and with the philosophical 

mercury he seeks to blend all powers to the glorifying of one

end.

Behind the degree of Master Mason, there is another not known to

earth. Far above him stretch other steps concealed by the blue

veil which divides the seen from the unseen. The true Brother

knows this, therefore he works with an end in view far above the

concept of mortal mind. He seeks to be worthy to pass behind that

veil and join that band who, unhonored and unsung, carry the

responsibilities of human growth. His eyes are fixed forever on

the Seven Stars which shine down from somewhere above the upper

rung of the ladder. With hope, faith, and charity he climbs the

steps, and whispering the Master's Word to the Keeper of the Gates,

passes on behind the veil. It is then, and then only, that a true

Mason is born. Only behind this veil does the mystic student come

into his own. The things which we see around us are but

forms-promises of a thing unnamed, symbols of a truth unknown. It

is in the spiritual temple built without the voice of workmen or

the sound of hammer that the true initiation is given, and there,

robed in the simple lambskin of a purified body, the student

becomes a Master Mason, chosen out of the world to be an active

worker in the name of the Great Architect. It is there alone,

unseen by mortal eyes, that the Greater Degrees are given and there

the soul radiating the light of Spirit becomes a living; star in

the blue canopy of the Masonic lodge.

TRANSMUTATION

Masonry is eternal truth, personified, idealized, and yet made

simple. Eternal truth alone can serve it. Virtue is its priest,

patience its warden, illumination its master. The world cannot know

this, however, save when Masons in their daily life prove that it

is so. Its truth is divine, and is not to be desecrated or defamed

by the thoughtlessness of its keepers. Its temple is a holy place,

to be entered in reverence. Material thoughts and material

dissensions must be left without its gate. They may not enter.

Only the pure of heart, regenerated and transmuted, may pass the

sanctity of its veil. The schemer has no place in its ranks, nor

the materialist in its shrine; for Masons walk on hallowed ground,

sanctified by the veneration of ages. Let the tongue be stilled,

let the heart be stilled, let the mind be stilled. In reverence

and in the silence, stillness shall speak: the voice of stillness

is the voice of the Creator. Show your light and your power to

men, but before God what have you to offer, save in humility? Your

robes, your tinsel, and your jewels mean naught to Him, until your

own body and soul, gleaming with the radiance of perfection, become

the living ornaments of your Lodge.

THE PRESENCE OF THE MASTER

The Mason believes in the Great Architect, the living keystone of

creation's plan, the Master of all Lodges, without whose spirit

there is no work. Let him never forget that the Master is near.

Day and night let him feet the presence of the Supreme or

Overshadowing One. The All-Seeing Eye is upon him. Day and night

this great Orb measures his depths, seeing into his innermost soul

of souls, judging his life, reading his thoughts, measuring his

aspirations, and rewarding his sincerity. To this All-Seeing One

he is accountable; to none other must he account. This Spirit

passes with him out of the Lodge and measures the Mason in the

world. This Spirit is with him when he buys and sells. It is with

him in his home. By the light of day and by the darkness of night

it judges him. It hears each thoughtless word. It is the silent

witness to every transaction of life, the silent Partner of every

man. By the jury of his acts, each man is judged. Let e very Mason

know that his obligations include not only those within the narrow

Lodge, bordered by walls of stone and brick, but those in the Great

Lodge, walled only by the dome of heaven. The Valley of

Jehoshaphat waits for him who is false to any creature, as surely

as it waited for the breakers of the Cosmic oath.

CHAPTER VI

THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A TRUE MASON

Every true Mason has come into the realization that there is but

one Lodge - that is, the Universe - and but one Brotherhood,

composed of everything that moves or exists in any of the planes of

Nature. He realizes that the Temple of Solomon is really the

Temple of the Solar Man -Sol-Om-On - the King of the Universe

manifesting through his three primordial builders. He realizes

that his vow of brotherhood and fraternity is universal, and that

mineral, plant, animal, and man are all included in the true

 Masonic Craft. His duty as an elder brother to all the kingdoms of

Nature beneath him is well understood by the true Craftsman, who

would rather die than fail in this, his great obligation. He has

dedicated his life upon the altar of his God and is willing and

glad to serve the lesser through the powers he has gained from the

greater. The mystic Mason, in building the eyes that see behind the

apparent ritual, recognizes the oneness of life manifesting

through the diversity of form.

The true disciple of ancient Masonry has given up forever the

worship of personalities. With his greater insight, he realizes

that all forms and their position in material affairs are of no

importance to him compared to the life which is evolving within.

Those who allow appearances or worldly expressions to deter them

from their self-appointed tasks are failures in Masonry, for

Masonry is an abstract science of spiritual unfoldment. Material

prosperity is not the measure of soul growth. The true Mason

 realizes that behind these diverse forms there is one connected Life

Principle, the spark of God in all living things. It is this Life

which he considers when measuring the worth of a brother. It is to

this Life that he appeals for a recognition of spiritual Unity. He

realizes that it is the discovery of this spark of Unity which

makes him a conscious member of the Cosmic Lodge. Most of all, he

must learn to understand that this divine spark shines out as

brightly from the body of a foe as it does from t he dearest

friend. The true Mason has learned to be divinely impersonal in

thought, action, and desire.

The true Mason is not creed-bound. He realizes with the divine

illumination of his lodge that as Mason his religion must be

universal: Christ, Buddha or Mohammed, the name means little, for

he recognizes only the light and not the bearer. He worships at

every shrine, bows before every altar, whether in temple, mosque or

cathedral, realizing with his truer understanding the oneness of

all spiritual truth. All true Masons know that they only are

heathen who, having great ideals, do not live up to them. They

know that all religions are but one story told in divers ways for

peoples whose ideals differ but whose great purpose is in harmony

with Masonic ideals. North, east, south and west stretch the

diversities of human thought, and while the ideals of man

apparently differ, when all is said and the crystallization of form

with its false concepts is swept away, one basic truth remains: all

existing things are Temple Builders, laboring for a single end. No

true Mason can be narrow, for his Lodge is the divine expression of

all broadness. There is no place for little minds in a great work.

The true Mason must develop the powers of observation. He must

seek eternally in all the manifestations of Nature for the things

which he has lost because he failed to work for them. He must

become a student of human nature and see in those around him the

unfolding and varying expressions of one connected spiritual

Intelligence. The great spiritual ritual of his lodge is enacted

before him in every action of his fellow man. The entire Masonic

initiation is an open secret, for anyone can see it played out on

the city street corners as well as in the untracked wilderness.

The Mason has sworn that every day he will extract from life its

message for him and build it into the temple of his God. He seeks

to learn the things which will make him of greater service in the

Divine Plan, a better instrument in the hands of the Great

Architect, who is laboring eternally to unfold life through the

medium of living things. The Mason realizes, moreover, that his

vows, taken of his own free will and accord, give him the divine

opportunity of being a living tool in the hands of a Master

Workman.

The true Master Mason enters his lodge with one thought uppermost

in his mind: "How can I, as an individual, be of greater use in the

Universal Plan? What can I do to be worthy to comprehend the

mysteries which are unfolded here? How can I build the eyes to see

the things which are concealed from those who lack spiritual

understanding?" The true Mason is supremely unselfish in every

expression and application of the powers that have been entrusted

to him. No true Brother seeks anything for himself, but unselfishly

 labors for the good of all. No person who assumes a

spiritual obligation for what he can get out of it is worthy of

applying for the position even of water-carrier. The true Light

can come only to those who, asking nothing, gladly give all to it.

The true brother of the Craft, while constantly striving to improve

himself, mentally, physically, and spiritually through the days of

his life, never makes his own desires the goal for his works. He

has a duty and that duty is to fit into the plans of another. He

must be ready at any hour of the day or night to drop his own

ideals at the call of the Builder. The work must be done and he

has dedicated his life to the service of those who know the bonds

of neither time nor space. He must be ready at any moment's notice

and his life should be turned into preparing himself for that call

which may come when he least expects it. The Master Mason knows

that those most useful to the Plan are those who have gained the

most from the practical experiences of life. It is not what goes

on within the tiled lodge which is the basis of his greatness, but

rather the way in which he meets the problems of daily life. The

true Masonic student is known by his brotherly actions and common

sense.

Every Mason knows that a broken vow brings with it a terrible

penalty. Let him also realize that failure to live mentally,

spiritually, and morally up to one's highest ideals constitutes the

greatest of all broken oaths. When a Mason swears that he will

devote his life to the building of his Father's house and then

defiles his living temple through the perversion of mental power,

emotional force, and active energy, he is breaking a vow which

imposes not hours but ages of misery. If he is worthy to be a Mason,

he must be great enough to restrain the lower side of his own

nature which is daily murdering his Grand Master. He must realize

that a misdirected life is a broken vow and that daily service,

purification, and the constructive application of energy is a

living invocation which builds within and draws to him the power of

the Creator. His life is the only prayer acceptable in the eyes of

the Most High. An impure life is a broken trust; a destructive

action is a living curse; a narrow mind is a strangle-cord around

the throat of God.

All true Masons know that their work is not secret, but they

realize that it must remain unknown to all who do not live the true

Masonic life. Yet if the so-called secrets of Freemasonry were

shouted from the housetops, the Fraternity would be absolutely

safe; for certain spiritual qualities are necessary before the real

Masonic secrets can be understood by the brethren themselves. Hence

it is that the alleged "exposures" of Freemasonry, printed by the

thousands and tens of thousands since 1730 down to the present

hour, cannot injure the Fraternity. They reveal merely the outward

forms and ceremonies of Freemasonry. Only those who have been

weighed in the balance and found to be true, upright, and square

have prepared themselves by their own growth to appreciate the

inner meanings of their Craft. To the rest of their brethren

within or without the lodge their sacred rituals must remain, as

Shakespeare might have said, "Words, words, words." Within the

Mason's own being is concealed the Power, which, blazing forth

from his purified being, constitutes the Builder's Word. His life

is the sole password which admits him to the true Masonic Lodge.

His spiritual urge is the sprig of acacia which, through the

darkness of ignorance, still proves that the spiritual fire is

alight. Within himself he must build those qualities which will

make possible his true understanding of the Craft. He can show the

world only forms which mean nothing; the life within is forever

concealed until the eye of Spirit reveals it.

The Master Mason realizes charity to be one of the greatest traits

which the Elder Brothers have unfolded, which means not only

properly regulated charity of the purse but charity in thought and

action. He realizes that all the workmen are not on the same step,

but wherever each may be, he is doing the best he can according to

his light. Each is laboring with the tools that he has, and he, as

a Master Mason, does not spend his time in criticizing but in

helping them to improve their tools. Instead of blaming poor

tools, let us always blame ourselves for having them. The Master

Mason does not find fault; he does not criticize nor does he

complain, but with malice towards none and charity towards all he

seeks to be worthy of his Father's trust. In silence he labors,

with compassion he suffers, and if the builders strike him as he

seeks to work with them, his last word will be a prayer for them.

The greater the Mason, the more advanced in his Craft, the more

fatherly he grows, the walls of his Lodge broadening out until all

living things are sheltered and guarded within the blue folds of

his cape. From laboring with the few he seeks to assist all,

realizing with his broader understanding the weaknesses of others

but the strength of right.

A Mason is not proud of his position. He is not puffed up by his

honor, but with a sinking heart is eternally ashamed of his own

place, realizing that it is far below the standard of his Craft.

The farther he goes, the more he realizes that he is standing on

slippery places and if he allows himself for one moment to lose his

simplicity and humility, a fall is inevitable. A true Mason never

feels himself worthy of his Craft. A student may stand on the top

of Fool's Mountain self-satisfied in his position , but the true

Brother is always noted for his simplicity.

A Mason cannot be ordained or elected by ballot. He is evolved

through ages of self-purification and spiritual transmutation.

There are thousands of Masons who are brethren in name only, for

their failure to exemplify the ideals of their Craft makes them

unresponsive to the teachings and purpose of Freemasonry. The

Masonic life forms the first key of the Temple and without this

key, none of the doors can be opened. When this fact is better

realized and lived, Freemasonry will awake, and speak the Word s o

long withheld. The speculative Craft will then become operative,

and the Ancient Wisdom so long concealed will rise from the ruins

of its temple as the greatest spiritual truth yet revealed to man.

The true Master Mason recognizes the value of seeking for truth

wherever he can find it. It makes no difference if it be in the

enemy's camp; if it be truth, he will go there gladly to secure it.

The Masonic Lodge is universal; therefore all true Masons will seek

through the extremities of creation for their Light. The true

brother of the Craft knows and applies one great paradox. He must

search for the high things in lowly places and find the lowly

things in high places. The Mason who feels holier than his fellow

man has raised a barrier around himself through which no light can

pass, for the one who in truth is the greatest is the servant of

all. Many brethren make a great mistake in building a wall around

their secrets, for they succeed only in shutting out their own

light. Their divine opportunity is at hand. The time has come when

the world needs the Ancient Wisdom as never before. Let the Mason

stand forth and by living the doctrines which he preaches show to

his brother man the glory of his work. He holds the keys to truth;

let him unlock the door, and with his life and not his words preach

the doctrine which he has so long professed.

The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man were united in the

completion of the Eternal Temple, the Great Work, for which all

things came into being and through which all shall glorify their

Creator.

MASONS, AWAKE!

Your creed and your Craft demand the best that is in you. They

demand the sanctifying of your life, the regeneration of your body,

the purification of your soul, and the ordination of your spirit.

Yours is the glorious opportunity; yours is the divine

responsibility. Accept your task and follow in the footsteps of

the Master Masons of the past, who with the flaming spirit of the

Craft have illumined the world. You have a great privilege - the

privilege of illumined labor. You may know the ends to which you

work, while others must struggle in darkness. Your labors are not

to be confined to the tiled Lodge alone, for a Mason must radiate

the qualities of his Craft. Its light must shine in his home and

in his business, glorifying his association with his fellow men.

In the Lodge and out of the Lodge, the Mason must represent the

highest fruitage of sincere endeavor.

EPILOGUE THE PRIEST OF RA

What words are there in modern language to describe the great

temple of Ammon Ra? It now stands amidst the sands of Egypt a pile

of broken ruins, but in the heyday of its glory it rose a forest of

plumed pillars holding up roofs of solid sandstone, carved by hands

long laid to rest into friezes of lotus blossoms and papyrus and

colored lifelike by pigments the secrets of which were lost with

the civilization that discovered them.

A checkerboard floor of black and white blocks stretched out until

it was lost among the wilderness of pillars. From the massive

walls the impassive faces of gods unnamed looked down upon the

silent files of priests who kept alight the altar fires, whose

feeble glow alone alighted the massive chambers throughout the

darkness of an Egyptian night. It was a weird, impressive scene,

and the flickering lights sent strange, ghostly forms scurrying

among the piles of granite which rose like mighty altars from the

darkness below to be lost in the shadows above.

Suddenly a figure emerged from the shadows, carrying in his hand a

small oil lamp which pierced the darkness like some distant star,

bringing into strange relief the figure of him who bore it. He

appeared to be old, for his long beard and braided hair were quite

gray, but his large black eyes shone with a fire seldom seen even

in youth. He was robed from head to foot in blue and gold, and

around his forehead was coiled a snake of precious metal, set with

jewelled eyes that gave out flashes of light. Never had the light

of Ra's chamber shone on a grander head or a form more powerful

than that of the high priest of the temple. He was the mouthpiece

of the gods and the sacred wisdom of ancient Egypt was impressed in

fiery letters upon his soul. As he crossed the great room - in one

hand the sceptre of the priestcraft, in the other the tiny lamp -

he was more like a spirit visitor from beyond the environs of death

than a physical being, for his jewelled sandals made no sound and

the sheen from his robes form ed a halo of light around his stately

form.

Down through the silent passageways, lined with their massive

pillars, passed the phantom figure - down steps lined with kneeling

sphinxes and through avenues of crouching lions the priest picked

his way until at last he reached a vaulted chamber whose marble

floor bore strange designs traced in some language long forgotten.

Each angle of the many-sided and dimly-lighted room was filled by a

seated figure carved in stone, so massive that its head and

shoulders were lost in shadows no eye could pierce.

In the center of this mystic chamber stood a great chest of some

black stone carved with serpents and strange winged dragons. The

lid was a solid slab, weighing hundreds of pounds, without handle

of any kind and the chest apparently had no means of being opened

without the aid of some herculean power.

The high priest leaned over and from the lamp he carried lighted

the fire upon an altar that stood near, sending the shadows of that

weird chamber scurrying into the most distant corners. As the

flame rose, it was reflected from the great stone faces above,

which seemed to stare at the black coffer in the center of the room

with their strange, sightless eyes.

Raising his serpent-wound staff and facing the chest of sombre

marble, the priest called out in a voice that echoed and re-echoed

from every nook and cranny of the ancient temple:

"Aradamas, come forth!"

Then a strange thing happened. The heavy slab that formed the

cover of the great coffer slowly raised as though lifted by unseen

hands and there emerged from its dark recesses a slim, white-clad

figure with his forearms crossed on his breast-the figure of a man

perhaps thirty years old, his long, black hair hanging down upon

his white-robed shoulders in strange contrast to the seamless

garment that he wore. His face, devoid of emotion, was as handsome

and serene as the great face of Ammon Ra himself that gazed down

upon the scene. Silently Aradamas stepped from the ancient tomb

and advanced slowly toward the high priest. When about ten paces

from the earthly representative of the gods, he paused, unfolded

his arms, and extended them across his chest in salutation. In one

hand he carried a cross with a ring as the upper arm and this he

proffered to the priest. Aradamas stood in silence as the high

priest, raising his sceptre to one of the great stone figures,

addressed an invocation to the Sun-God of the universe. This

finished, he then addressed the youthful figure as follows:

"Aradamas, you seek to know the mystery of creation, you ask that

the divine illumination of the Thrice-Greatest and the wisdom that

for ages has been the one gift the gods would shower upon mankind,

be entrusted to you. Little you understand of the thing you ask,

but those who know have said that he who proves worthy may receive

the truth. Therefore, stand you here today to prove your divine

birthright to the teaching that you ask."

The priest pronounced these words slowly and solemnly and then

pointed with his sceptre to a great dim archway surmounted by a

winged globe of gleaming gold.

"Before thee, up those steps and through those passageways, lies

the path that leads to the eye of judgment and the feet of Ammon

Ra. Go, and if thy heart be pure, as pure as the garment that thou

wearest, and if thy motive be unselfish, thy feet shall not stumble

and thy being shall be filled with light. But remember that Typhon

and his hosts of death lurk in every shadow and that death is the

result of failure."

Aradamas turned and again folded his arms over his breast in the

sign of the cross. As he walked slowly through the somber arch, the

shadows of the great Unknown closed over him who had dedicated his

life to the search for the Eternal. The priest watched him until

he was lost to sight among the massive pillars beyond the short

span that divided the living from the dead. Then slowly falling on

his knees before the gigantic statue of Ra and raising his eyes to

the shadows that through the long night conceal ed the face of the

Sun-God, he prayed that the youth might pass from the darkness of

the temple pillars to the light he sought.

It seemed that for a second a glow played around the face of the

enormous statue and a strange hush of peace filled the ancient

temple. The high priest sensed this, for rising, he relighted his

lamp and walked slowly away. His beacon of light shone fainter and

fainter in the distance, and finally was lost to view among the

papyrus blooms of the temple pillars. All that remained were the

dying flames on the altar, which sent strange flickering glows over

the great stone coffer and the twelve judges of the Egyptian dead.

In the meantime, Aradamas, his hands still crossed on his breast,

walked slowly onward and upward until the last ray from the burning

altar fire was lost to view among the shadows far behind. Through

years of purification he had prepared himself for the great ordeal,

and with a purified body and a balanced mind, he wended his way in

and out amoung the pillars that loomed about him. As he walked

along, there seemed to radiate from his being a faint golden glow

which illuminated the pillars as he passed the m. He seemed a

ghostly form amid a grove of ancient trees.

Suddenly the pillars widened out to form another vaulted room,

dimly lit by a reddish haze. As Aradamas proceeded, there appeared

around him swirling wisps of this scarlet light. First they

appeared as swiftly moving clouds, but slowly they took form, and

strange misty figures in flowing draperies hovered in the air and

held out long swaying arms to stay his progress. Wraiths of ruddy

mist hovered about him and whispered soft words into his ears,

while weird music, like the voice of the storm and the cries of

night birds, resounded through the lofty halls. Still Aradamas

walked on calm and masterful, his fine, spiritual face outlined by

his raven locks in strange contrast to the sinuous forms that

gathered around and tried to lure him from his purpose. Unmindful

of strange forms that beckoned from ghostly archways and the

pleading of soft voices, he passed steadily on his way with but one

thought in his mind:

"Fiat Lux!" (Let there be light.)

The ghastly music grew louder and louder, terminating at last in a

mighty roar. The very walls shook; the dancing forms swayed like

flickering candle shadows and, still pleading and beckoning,

vanished among the pillars of the temple.

As the temple walls tottered, Aradamas paused; then with slow

measured step he resumed his search for some ray of light, finding

always darkness deeper than before. Suddenly before him loomed

another doorway, flanked on either side by an obelisk of carved

marble, one black and the other white. Through the doorway glowed

a dim light, concealed by a gossamer veil of blue silk.

As Aradamas slowly climbed the flight of steps leading to the

doorway, there materialized upon the ground at his feet a swirl of

lurid mist. In the faint glow that it cast, it twisted like some

oily gas, filling the entire chamber with a loathsome miasma. Then

out of this cloud issued a gigantic form - half human, half

reptile. In its bloodshot eyes burned ruddy pods of demon fire,

while great claw-like hands reached out to enfold and crush the

slender figure that confronted it. Aradamas wavered for a s ingle

instant as the horrible apparition lunged forward, its size doubly

magnified in the iridescent fog. Then the white-robed neophyte

again slowly advanced, his arms still crossed on his breast. He

raised his fine face, illumined by a divine light, and courageously

faced the hideous specter. As he confronted the menacing form, for

an instant it loomed over him like a towering demon. Suddenly

Aradamas raised the cross he carried and held it u p before the

monster. As he did so, the Crux Ansata gleamed with a wondrous

golden light, which, striking the oily, scaly monster, seemed to

dissolve its every particle into golden sparks. As the last of the

demon guardians vanished before the rays of the cross, a bolt of

lightning flashed through the ancient hallways and, striking the

veil that hung between the obelisks, rent it down the center and

disclosed a vaulted chamber with a circular dome, dimly lighted by

invisible lamps.

Bearing his now flaming cross, Aradamas entered the room and

instinctively gazed upward to the lofty dome. There, floating in

space, far above his head, he saw a great closed eye surrounded by

fleecy clouds and rainbow colors. Long Aradamas gazed upon the

wonderful sight, for he knew that it was the Eye of Horus, the

All-Seeing Eye of the gods.

As he stood there, he prayed that the will of the gods might be

made known unto him and that in some way he might be found worthy

to open that closed eye in the temple of the living God.

As he stood there gazing upward, the eyelid flickered. As the

great orb slowly opened, the chamber was filled with a dazzling,

blinding light that seemed to consume the very stones with fire.

Aradamas staggered. It seemed as if every atom of his being was

scorched by the effulgence of that glow. He instinctively closed

his eyes and now he feared to open them, for in that terrific blaze

of splendor it seemed that only blindness would follow his action.

Little by little, a strange feeling of peace and ca lm descended

upon him and at length he dared to open his eyes to find that the

glare was gone, the entire chamber was bathed in a soft, wondrous

glow from the mighty Eye in the ceiling. The white robe he had

worn had also given place to one of living fire which blazed as

though with the reflection of thousands of lesser eyes from the

divine orb above. As his eyes became accustomed to the glow, he

saw that he was no longer alone. He was surrounded by twelve

white-robed figures who, bowing before him, held up strange

insignia wrought from living gold.

As Aradamas looked, all the figures pointed, and as he followed the

direction of their hands, he saw a staircase of living light that

led far up into the dome and passed the Eye in the ceiling.

With one voice, the twelve said: "Yonder lies the way of

liberation."

Without a moment's hesitation, Aradamas mounted the staircase, and

with feet that seemed to barely touch the steps, climbed upward

into the dawn of a great unknown. At last, after climbing many

steps, he reached a doorway that opened as he neared it. The

breath of morning air fanned his cheek and a golden ray of sunshine

played among the waves of his dark hair. He stood on the top of a

mighty pyramid, before him a blazing altar. In the distance, far

over the horizon, the rolling sands of the Egyptian desert

reflected the first rays of the morning sun which, like a globe of

golden fire, rose again out of the eternal East. As Aradamus stood

there, a voice that seemed to issue from the very heavens chanted a

strange song, and a hand, reaching out as it were from the globe of

day itself, placed a serpent wrought of gold upon the brow of the

new initiate.

"Behold Khepera, the rising sun! For as he brings the mighty globe

of day out of the darkness of night, between his claws, so for thee

the Sun of Spirit has risen from the darkness of night and in the

name of the living God, we hail thee Priest of Ra."

SO MOTE IT BE

ADDENDA THE ROBE OF BLUE AND GOLD

Hidden in the depths of the unknown, three silent beings weave the

endless thread of human fate. They are called the Sisters, known

to mythology as the Norns or Fates who incessantly twist between

their fingers a tiny cord, which one day is to be woven into a

living garment - the coronation robe of the priest-king.

To the mystics and philosophers of the world this garment is known

under many names. To some it is the simple yellow robe of

Buddahood. By the ancient Jews it was symbolized as the robe of

the high priest, the Garment of Glory unto the Lord. To the

Masonic brethren, it is the robe of Blue and Gold - the Star of

Bethlehem - the Wedding Garment of the Spirit.

Three Fates weave the threads of this living garment, and man

himself is the creator of his Fates. The triple thread of thought,

action, and desire binds him when he enters the sacred place or

seeks admittance into the tiled lodge, but later this same cord is

woven into a splendid garment whose purified folds clothe the

sacred spark of his being.

We all like to be well dressed. Robes of velvet and ermine stand

for symbols of rank and glory; but too many ermine capes have

covered empty hearts, too many crowns have rested on the brows of

tyrants. These are symbols of earthly things and in the world of

matter are too often misplaced. The true coronation robe - the

garment molded after the pattern of heaven, the robe of glory of

the Master Mason - is not of the earth; for it tells of his

spiritual growth, his deeper understanding, and his consecrated

life. The garments of the high priest of the tabernacle were but

symbols of his own body, which, purified and transfigured,

glorified the life within. The notes of the tiny silver bells that

tinkled with never-ending music from the fringe of his vestments

told of a life harmonious, while the breastplate which rested amid

the folds of the ephod reflected the gleams of heavenly truth from

the facets of its gems.

There is another garment without a seam which we are told was often

worn by the ancient brethren in the days of the Essenes, when the

monastery of the lowly Nazarenes rose in silent grandeur from the

steep sides of Mt. Tabor, to be reflected in the inscrutable waters

of the Dead Sea. This one-piece garment is the spiral thread of

human life which, when purified by right motive and right living,

becomes a tiny thread of golden light, eternally weaving the

purified garment of regenerated bodies. Like the white of the

lambskin apron, it stands for the simple, the pure, and the

harmless. These are the requirements of the Master Mason, who must

renounce forever this world's pomp and vanity and seek to weave

that simple one-piece robe of the soul which marks the Master,

consecrated and consummated.

With the eye of the mind we still can see the lowly Nazarene in his

spotless robe of white - a garment no king's ransom could buy.

This robe is woven out of the actions of our daily lives, each deed

weaving into the endless pattern a thread, black or white,

according to the motives which inspired our actions. As the Master

Mason labors in accordance with his vows, he slowly weaves this

spotless robe out of the transmuted energy of his efforts. It is

this white robe which must be worn under the vestments of state,

and whose spotless surface sanctifies him for the robes of glory,

which can be worn only over the stainless, seamless garment of his

purified life.

When this moment arrives and the candidate has completed his task -

when he comes purified and regenerated to the altar of wisdom, he

is truly baptized of the fire and its flame blazes up within

himself. From him pour forth streams of light, and a great aura of

multicolored fire bathes him with its radiance. The sacred flame

of the gods has found its resting place in him, and through him

renews its covenant with man. He is then truly a Freemason, a

child of light. This wonderful garment, of which all earthly

robes are but symbols, is built of the highest qualities of human

nature, the noblest of ideals, and the purest of aspirations. Its

coming is made possible only through the purification of body and

unselfish service to others in the name of the Creator.

When the Mason has built all these powers into himself, there

radiates from him a wonderful body of living fire, like that which

surrounded the Master Jesus, at the moment of His transfiguration.

This is the Robe of Glory, the garment of Blue and Gold which,

shining forth as a five-pointed star of light, heralds the birth of

the Christ within. Man is then indeed a son of God, pouring forth

from the depths of his own being the light rays which are the life

of man.

Striking hearts that have long been cold, this spiritual ray raises

them from the dead. It is the living light which illuminates those

still buried in the darkness of materiality. It is the power which

raises by the strong grip of the lion's paw. It is the Great Light

which, seeking forever the spark of itself within all living

things, reawakens dead ideals and smothered aspirations with the

power of the Master's Eternal Word. Then the Master Mason becomes

indeed the Sun in Leo; and, reaching downward into the tomb of

crystallization, raises the murdered Builder from the dead by the

grip of the Master Mason.

As the sun awakens the seedlings in the ground, so this Son of Man,

glowing with the light divine, radiates from his own purified being

the mystic shafts of redeeming light which awaken the seeds of hope

and truth and a nobler life. Discouragement and suffering too

often brings down the temple, burying under its debris the true

reason for being and the higher motives for living.

As the glorious robe of the sun - the symbol of all life - bathes

and warms creation with its glow, this same robe, enfolding all

things, warms them and preserves them with its light and life. Man

is a god in the making, and as in the mystic myths of Egypt, on the

potter's wheel he is being molded. When his light shines out to

lift and preserve all things, he receives the triple crown of

godhood, and joins that throng of Master Masons who, in their robes

of Blue and Gold, are seeking to dispel the darkness of night with

the triple light of the Masonic Lodge.

Ceaselessly the Norns spin the thread of human fate. Age in and

age out, upon the looms of destiny are woven the living garments of

God. Some are rich in glorious colors and wondrous fabrics, while

others are broken and frayed before they leave the loom. All,

however, are woven by these three Sisters - thought, action, and

desire - with which the ignorant build walls of mud and bricks of

slime between themselves and truth; while the pure of heart weave

from these radiant threads garments of celestial beauty.

Do what we will, we cannot stop those nimble fingers which twist

the threads, but we may change the quality of the thread they use.

We should give these three eternal weavers only the noble and the

true; then the work of their hands will be perfect. The thread

they twist may be red with the blood of others, or dark with the

uncertainties of life; but if we resolve to be true, we may restore

its purity and weave from it the seamless garment of a perfect

life. This is man's most acceptable gift upon the al tar of the

Most High, his supreme sacrifice to the Creator.

FRIENDSHIP

What nobler relationship than that of friend? What nobler

compliment can man bestow than friendship? The bonds and ties of

the life we know break easily, but through eternity one bond

remains - the bond of fellowship - the fellowship of atoms, of star

dust in its endless flight, of suns and worlds, of gods and men.

The clasped hands of comradeship unite in a bond eternal - the

fellowship of spirit. Who is more desolate than the friendless

one? Who is more honored than one whose virtues have given him a

 friend? To have a friend is good, but to be a friend is better. The

noblest title ever given man, the highest title bestowed by the

gods, was when the great Jove gazed down upon Prometheus and said,

"Behold, a friend of man!" Who serves man, serves God. This is the

symbol of the fellowship of your Craft, for the plan of God is

upheld by the clasped hands of friends. The bonds of relationship

must pass, but the friend remains. Serve God by being a friend, -

a friend of the soul of man, serving his needs, lighting his

steps, smoothing his way. Let the world of its own accord say of

the Mason, "Behold the friend of all." Let the world say of the

Lodge, "This is indeed a fraternity of brothers, comrades in spirit

and in truth."

THE EMERALD TABLET OF HERMES (TABULA SMARAGDINA)

The Emerald Tablet of Hermes, illustrated on the opposite page,

introduces us to Hiram, the hero of the Masonic legend. The name

Hiram is taken from the Chaldean Chiram. The first two words in

large print mean the secret work. The second line in large

letters--(CHIRAM TELAT MECHASOT - means Chiram, the Universal

Agent, one in Essence, but three in aspect. Translated, the body

of the Tablet reads as follows:

It is true and no lie, certain, and to be depended upon, that the

superior agrees with the inferior, and the inferior with the

superior, to effect that one truly wonderful work. As all things

owe their existence to the will of the Only One, so all things owe

their origin to One Only Thing, the most hidden, by the arrangement

of the Only God. The father of that One Only Thing is the Suit;

its mother is the Moon; the wind carries it in its wings; but its

nurse is a Spirituous Earth. That One Only Thing (after God) is

the father of all things in the universe. Its power is perfect,

after it has been united to a spirituous earth. Separate that

spirituous earth from the dense or crude earth by means of a gentle

heat, with much attention. In great measure it ascends from the

earth up to heaven, and descends again, new born, on the earth, and

the superior and inferior are increased in power. * * * By this

thou wilt partake of the honors of the whole world an d darkness

will fly from thee. This is the strength o f all powers; with this

thou wilt be able to overcome all things and to transmute all that

is fine and all that is coarse. In this manner the world was

created, but the arrangements to follow this road are hidden. For

this reason I am called CHIRAM TELAT MECHASOT, one in Essence, but

three in aspect. In this Trinity is hidden the wisdom of the whole

world. It is ended now, what I have said concerning the effects of

the Sun.

FINISH OF THE TABULA SMARAGDINA

In a rare, unpublished old manuscript dealing with early Masonic

and Hermetic mysteries, we find the following information

concerning the mysterious Universal Agent referred to as "Chiram"

(Hiram) :

The sense of this Emerald Tablet can sufficiently convince us that

the author was well acquainted with the secret operations of Nature

and with the secret work of the philosophers (alchemists and

Hermetists). He likewise well knew and believed in the true God.

It has been believed for several ages that Cham, one of the sons of

Noah, is the author of this monument of antiquity. A very ancient

author, whose name is not known, who lived several centuries before

Christ, mentions this tablet, and says that he had seen it in

Egypt, at the court; that it was a precious stone, an emerald,

whereon these characters were represented in bas-relief, not

engraved.

He states that it was in his time esteemed over two thousand years

old, and that the matter of this emerald had once been in a fluidic

state like melted glass, and had been cast in a mold, and that to

this flux the artist had given the hardness of a natural and

genuine emerald, by (alchemical) art.

The Canaanites were called the Phoenicians by the Greeks, who have

told us that they had Hermes for one of their kings. There is a

definite relation between Chiram and Hermes.

Chiram is a word composed of three words, denoting the Universal

Spirit, the essence whereof the whole creation does consist, and

the object of Chaldean, Egyptian, and genuine natural philosophy,

according to its inner principles or properties. The three Hebrew

words Chamah, Rusch, and Majim, mean respectively Fire, Air, and

Water, while their initial consonants, Ch, R, M, give us Chiram,

that invisible essence which is the father of earth, fire, air and

water; because, although immaterial in its own invisible nature as

the unmoved and electrical fire, when moved it becomes light and

visible; and when collected and agitated, becomes heat and visible

and tangible fire; and when associated with humidity it becomes

material. The word Chiram has been metamorphosed into Hermes and

also into Herman, and the translators of the Bible have made Chiram

by changing Chet into He; both of these Hebrew word signs being

very similar.

In the word Hermaphrodite, (a word invented by the old

philosophers), we find Hermes changed to Herm, signifying Chiram,

or the Universal Agent, and Aphrodite, the passive principle of

humidity, who is also called Venus, and is said to have been

produced and generated by the sea.

We also read that Hiram (Chiram), or the Universal Agent, assisted

King Solomon to build the temple. No doubt as Solomon possessed

wisdom, he understood what to do with the corporealized Universal

Agent. The Talmud of the Jews says that King Solomon built the

temple by the assistance of Shamir. Now this word signifies the

sun, which is perpetually collecting the omnipresent, surrounding,

electrical fire, or Spiritus Mundi, and sending it to us in the

planets, in a visible manner called light.

This electrical flame, corporealized and regenerated into the Stone

of the Philosophers, enabled King Solomon to produce the immense

quantities of gold and silver used to build and decorate his

temple.

These paragraphs from an ancient philosopher may assist the Masonic

student of today to realize the tremendous and undreamed-of shire

of knowledge that lies behind the allegory which he often hears but

seldom analyzes. Hiram, the Universal Agent, might be translated

Vita the power eternally building and unfolding the bodies of man.

The use and abuse of energy is the keynote to the Masonic legend;

in fact, it is the key to all things in Nature. Hiram, as the

triple energy, one in source but three in aspect, can almost be

called ether, that unknown hypothetical element which carries the

impulses of the gods through the macrocosmic nervous system of the

Infinite; for like Hermes, or Mercury, who was the messenger of the

gods, ether carries impulses upon its wings. The solving of the

mystery of ether - or, if you prefer to call it vibrant space - is

the great problem of Masonry. This ether, as a hypothetical

medium, brings energy to the three bodies of thought, emotion, and

action, in this manner Chiram, the one in essence, becoming three

in aspect - mental, emotional, and vital. The work which follows is

an effort to bring to light other forgotten and neglected elements

of the Masonic rites, and to emphasize the spirit of Hiram as the

Universal Agent.

Freemasonry is essentially mysterious, ritualistic, and ceremonial,

representing abstract truth in concrete form. Earth (or substance)

smothering energy (or vitality) is the mystery behind the murder of

the Builder.

MOTIVE

What motive leads the Masonic candidate out of the world and up the

winding stairway to the light? He alone can truly know, for in his

heart is hidden the motive of his works. Is he seeking the light

of the East? Is he seeking wisdom eternal? Does he bring his life

and offer it upon the altar of the Most high? Of all things, motive

is most important. Though we fail again and again, it our motive

be true, we are victorious. Though time after time we succeed, if

our motive be unworthy, we have failed. Enter the temple in

reverence, for it is in truth the dwelling place of a Great Spirit,

the Spirit of Masonry. Masonry is an ordainer of kings. Its hand

has shaped the destinies of worlds, and the perfect fruitage of its

molding is an honest man. What nobler thing can be accomplished

than the illumination of ignorance? What greater task is there than

the joyous labor of service? And what nobler man can there be than

that Mason who serves his Lights, and is himself a light unto his

fellow men?