WHATS MEAN THIS SYMBOL?

The finest study about symbols and secret meanings.

"Pray far the peace of Jerusalem! they shall

prosper that love it.

Peace is within her walls and plenteousness

within her palaces.

For my brethren and companions' sake I will say,

Peace be within thee."

(Psalm CXXII)

The old time Masons were religious men and as such sharers in the

great human experience of Divine things, and did not need to go to

hidden teachers to learn mysticism. They lived and worked in the

light of it. It shone in their symbols, as it does in all symbols

that have any meaning or beauty. It is, indeed the soul of

symbolism, every emblem being an effort to express a reality too

great for words. So then, Masonry is mystical as music is mystical,

- like poetry, and love, and faith, and prayer, and all else that

makes it worth our time to live; but its mysticism is sweet, sane,

and natural, far from fantastic, and in no wise eerie, unreal or

unbalanced. Of course, these words fail to describe, as all words

must, and it is therefore that Masonry uses parables, pictures, and

symbols.

This Paper is an attempt to discover the significance of some of

the allegories and symbols which pervade our Ritual. There is no

pretence at endeavouring to assess how the symbols crept into the

Ritual, but at trying to interpret certain parts of the Ritual as

it is this day for the benefit of fellow Masonic students. As it is

practically impossible to consider the subject apart from its

relation to mysticism, a few words regarding the origin of this

word will nit be out of place by way of introduction to its

connection with Freemasonry.

Illumination or "muesis," although sometimes used, as we in the

Craft use "initiation," to denote the whole process of spiritual

regeneration, was the technical term in the ancient Greek mysteries

for the second stage of the work; the first being "catharsis" or

purification, and the third "epopteia" or mystical union. A

"mustes" (mystic) is one who has been, or is being, initiated into

some esoteric knowledge of Divine things, about which he must

maintain silence; one who is not yet an "epoptes." The adjective

"mustikos" was used of something seen through a glass darkly, some

knowledge purposely "veiled in allegory and illustrated by

symbols." The safeguard of mysticism is the belief that we have not

merely to renounce the world of ordinary experience, but to find

its deeper and more spiritual meanings and so to advance in the

knowledge of God, the world, and ourselves, that every aspect of

our experience may be exalted and consecrated together.

All who are acquainted with the literature of mysticism, the study

of which has come greatly to the fore in recent years, will know

that the mystic makes his life's aim to be transformed into the
likeness of Him in whose image he was created. Just as Freemasonry

is a quest for "Light," so the mystic quest is the pursuit of

ultimate objective truth, the journey of the soul by an inner

ascent to the presence of God and immediate union with Him. The

mystic loves to figure his path as a ladder reaching from earth to

heaven, which must be climbed step by step. This "Scala

perfectionis" is generally divided into three steps. The first is

called the purgative life; the second the illuminative; while the

third, which is really the goal rather than a part of the journey,

is called the unitive life or state of perfect contemplation. It is

a fundamental mystical doctrine that, while purification removes

the obstacles to our union with God, our guide on the upward path,

the true hierophant of the Divine mysteries, is LOVE. In our

Masonic system we have, as a connecting link between heaven and

earth, the symbol of Jacob's Ladder (definitely identified at one

point in the Ritual with the "infallible P.R.,") with its many

staves or rounds, but it is significant that there are "three

principal ones" corresponding to the three stages of mysticism, the

"third and last" comprehending the whole being designated by the

term "Charity" understood in "its most ample sense" i.e. LOVE.