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THE MASONIC INITIATION
light on the way
CHAPTER II
W. L. WILMSHURST
" They went up
with winding stairs into the middle chamber,
and out of the
middle into the third ."
---1
Kings vi, 8.
"Does the road
wind up-hill all the way ?"
Yes, to the very
end.
"Will the day's
journey take the whole long day ?"
From morn to
night, my friend!
"But is there for
the night a resting-place ?
A roof for when
the slow dark hours begin ?
May not the
darkness hide it from my face ?"
You cannot miss
that Inn.
---Christina Rossetti
In the previous
paper we have spoken of the transition from darkness to
light made by those who seek to effect the reconstitution of their natural
being and to develop it, by the science and methods of Initiation, to a
higher and ultra-natural level.
It has been made
clear that that transition must necessarily be gradual,
and that, though ceremonially dramatized in three Degrees which can be
taken in successive months, to realize the implications of those Degrees in
actual life-experience may be a life-time's work ; perhaps more than a *
life-time's. The Apprentice who has entered himself to the business of
rebuilding his own soul has much to learn and to do before he becomes even
a competent Craftsman in it ; the Craftsman, in turn, has much to do and
far to journey before he can hope for complete Mastership. The work of
self-transmutation is a strenuous one, not suddenly or hurriedly to be
performed, and one needing hours of refreshment and passivity as well as
hours of active labour, to each of which he will find himself duly summoned
at the proper time. There is much to be learned in regard to the secrets of
his own nature and the principles of intellectual science, which only
gradually, and as the result of patience and experience, can become
revealed to his view . There is a superstructure to be raised, perfect in
all its parts ; a work involving much more than is at first supposed. There
are tests and ordeals of a searching character to be undergone on the way.
A measure of
Light, a first glimpse of the distant Promised Land, may come
to the eager sight of the properly prepared candidate from the first moment
of his entrance upon the work, but he must not suppose that he has yet
fully captured it and made it permanently his own . It is something,
however, to have felt that a veil has been suddenly withdrawn from his
previously darkened sight and that he has become able to distinguish
between his former benightedness and the goal lying before him.
We will entitle
this present section, therefore, "Light on the Way," and
make it treat of a variety of matters calling for the aspirant's attention
as he pursues the way that intervenes between his first glimpse of the
Light and its ultimate realization ; and in a subsequent section we shall
speak of Light in its fullness of attainment . We will supplement our
previous explanation of Masonic doctrine by dealing with further symbols
and passages in the rituals, with which every Mason is familiar formally
and by the outward ear, but the significance of which too often passes
unexplained and unobserved .
The expositions in
this Section are offered not Light only for the private
reflection of - members of the on Craft, but with the suggestion that they
may serve the as material for collective meditation by Brethren in open
Lodge or at Lodges of Instruction . For those upon the path to real
Initiation, meditation is essential. For meditation opens a window in the
mind through which Light streams into the understanding from the higher,
spiritual principle in ourselves ; which window is symbolized by the
dormer-window in the emblematic Temple of Solomon, through which came light
to those ascending the stairway that wound inwardly to the middle chamber
leading to the central sanctuary where alone Light in its fullness was to be
found.
The practice of
meditation, moreover, whether personal or collective,
conduces to that quietness and control of the normally restless, wandering
mind . which are indispensable for the apprehension of deep Truth. Ancient
Lodges, _ we are told, were wont to meet on the highest hills and in the
lowest valleys ; and in an old Instruction-lecture it is explained that
those expressions are meant to be figurative and relate less to actual
places than to the spiritual and mental condition of those assembled. To
meet in the valley, implied being in a state of sheltered passiveness and
tranquility, when the minds of the Brethren surrendered themselves to
quiet collective thought on the subject of their work ; and thus, being
"led beside still waters," they became, like the limpid unruffled surface
of a lake, a clear undistorting mirror for the reflection and apprehension
of such rays of light and truth as might reach them from above . To meet on
the high hills, on the other hand, implied the more active work of the
Lodge and the performance of it upon the superphysical planes-the "hills"
of the spirit ; for the real work of Initiation is only there accomplished,
and is no longer a ceremonial formality.
There are times
for work and times for repose in the Craftsman's task-times
of labour and refreshment and to perform that task efficiently both must be
utilized. Modern Lodges, in the general imperfect conception of Masonry,
follow merely the rush and hustle methods of the outside world, which, of
course, inside the Lodge have no place and ought no longer to be emulated .
They are busy enough on the active side, but they provide no opportunity
for cultivating the equally necessary passive aspect of the work . It would
be found eminently advantageous, therefore, if Lodges which desire to-
realize true Masonry adopted the practice of collectively contemplating
points of symbolism and teaching ; devoting certain meetings to this
special purpose, and then, without more discussion than is necessary and
helpful, quietly and earnestly concentrating attention upon the
significance of some symbol or point of doctrine brought before them .
For those
seriously engaged in the ascent of the winding staircase, -the
following expositions may perhaps serve as helpful rays of light from the
dormer window. They are necessarily brief and merely elementary
introductions to phases of the science which, as the aspirant proceeds, he
will find inexhaustible and claiming not cursory notice but his constant
deep attention. May they, however, be as a lamp to his feet and a light
upon the spiral path to ledge his own middle chamber, and help to guide him
to that final central sanctuary where the Light itself shines in fullness
and waits to be found.
It has already
been shown that the structure and appointments of the Lodge
are symbolic ; that the Lodge is a representation both of the Universe and
of man himself as a Microcosm or the Universe in miniature ; that it is an
image of his own complex constitution, his heavens and his earth (his
spirituality and materiality) and all that therein is .
By contemplating
that image, therefore, the Mason learns to visualize
himself ; he is given a first lesson in that self-knowledge in the full
attainment of which is promised the understanding of all things. "Know
thyself," we have said, was written over the portals of the ancient temples
of Initiation, self-knowledge being the aim of their intention and the goal
of their purpose. Masonry perpetuates this maxim by recommending
self-knowledge as "the most interesting of all human studies." It is the
tersest, wisest of instructions, yet little heeded nowadays, and it is
incapable of fulfillment unless undertaken in accordance with the ancient
science and with a concentration of one's whole energies upon the task .
It involves the
deepest introspection into oneself and perfect
discrimination between what is real and permanent, and what is unreal and
evanescent in ourselves . As aspirants to the Mysteries could not learn the
secrets of the Temple without entering it, learning its lessons, undergoing
its disciplines, and receiving its graduated initiations, so no one can
attain self-knowledge save by entering into himself, distinguishing the
false from the true, the unreal from the real, the base metal from the fine
gold, sublimating the former into the latter, and ignoring what is
negligible or superfluous . The very word Initiation primarily derives from
the Latin in ire, to go within ; and thence, after learning the lessons of
self-analysis, to make a new beginning (initium) by reconstructing one's
knowledge of life and manner of living. The 43rd Psalm restates the same
instruction : Introibo ad altare Dei, " I will go in to the divine altar ."
Similarly, the Masonic Initiation contemplates a going within oneself,
until one reaches the altar or centre, the Divine Principle or ultimate
hidden basis of our being.
To know the anatomy and physiology of the mortal body is not self-knowledge. The
physical fabric of man is a perishing self, mere dust and shadow,
projected from vitalizing forces within it, and without permanence or reality .
To understand the
nature and mechanism of the mind, emotions and desires,
is useful and necessary, but is not self-knowledge, for they, too, are
transient and, therefore, unreal aspects of the deeper real self. The
personality we present to the world is not our real self. It is but a mask,
a distorting veil, behind which the true self abides hiddenly and often
unknown to our unreal surface self, unless and until it be brought forward
into consciousness, displacing and overriding the notions and tendencies of
the natural, but benighted, superficial self. Until then its "light shineth
in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not ." To bring it forward
out of its veils of darkness, to "comprehend" and establish it permanently
in our awareness is, and has ever been, the purpose of all Initiation . But
this cannot be achieved until the outer bodily and mental vestures have
been purified and a voluntary dying or effacement of everything in us alien
to, or conflicting with, the real self has been suffered ; all which is
implied by the teaching of our three Degrees respectively.
True
self-knowledge is unobstructed conscious union of the human spirit
with God and the realization of their identity . In that identic union the
unreal, superficial selves have become obliterated . The sense of
personality is lost, merged in the Impersonal and Universal. The little Ego
is assumed into the great All, and knows as It knows . Man realizes his own
inherent ultimate Divinity, and thenceforth lives and acts no longer as a
separate individual, with an independent will, but in integration with the
Divine Life and Will, whose instrument he becomes, whose purposes he
thenceforth serves . This is "the great day of atonement," when the limited
personal consciousness becomes identified or made at one with one's own
divine, omniscient, vital and immortal Principle, which each must realize
as the high priest of his personal temple and after many washings and
purifyings against the contrary tendencies of his former unregenerate
nature . This was the secret supreme attainment hinted at in the cryptic
maxim "Know thyself !." Each of us may judge for himself whether he has yet
reached it .
To find our own
Centre, our real self, involves, therefore, a turning
inwards of our previously externalized faculties of sense and thought, and
an introspective penetration of the outlying circumferential elements of
our nature until the Centre" is found. This task is figured by our
ceremonial perambulations and by the path of the winding staircase leading
from the ante-rooms and forecourts of our nature to the Centre, up which
the aspirant must ascend, asking, seeking, knocking, all the way ; being
subjected from time to time to tests of his progress and receiving, without
scruple or diffidence, such wages of good fortune or adversity as unseen
Providences may know to be his due .
The inmost
sanctuary he will find closely guarded . Nothing unclean can
enter or approach that holy place. Hence in the biblical description of the
symbolic Temple one finds that, in the forecourt, stood the great laver of
water for the cleansing of pollutions, and the altar of fire for the
sacrificial burning up of one's impurities. The sword of the G., directed
to those unqualified to enter the Lodge, is the Masonic way of inculcating
that peril exists to those who are not properly prepared to approach the
Centre or who would rush in where angels fear to tread ; it corresponds
with the sword of the Cherubim in Genesis, which turned every way to keep
the way to the Tree of Life from the approaches of the unfit.
Mental as well as
physical purity is indispensable to real Initiation, but
is far more difficult of the two to acquire . Modern psychology discloses
not only how fractional a part of our entire mentality functions above the
threshold of our normal awareness, but also what knots and twists, what
mental lumber, what latent horrors and accumulations of inner foulness, lie
stored in the sub-consciousness of even those living ordinarily clean lives.
They are the deposits of the mind's past activities ; forgotten often by
the conscious mind itself, yet automatically registered upon our impalpable
mind-stuff by the recording pencil (mentioned among the Third Degree
working-tools) which at every moment of our lives posts up entries of our
thoughts, words, and actions. For at the centre of ourselves is the
all observant Eye; so that we ourselves constitute our own Judgment Book,
wherein each of us unwittingly inscribes his own history and formulates his
own destiny, and its pages we have each to read ourselves .
With these mental
deposits and consolidations those skilled in Initiation
science are well familiar. The modern psychologist calls them "complexes ."
In the old treatises on the subject they are termed foul ethers,
congelations of impure mental matter . They are the "base metals" of
Masonry. Each of us has been an artificer of those metals and worked them
into all manners of grotesque designs in his mental nature, and hence the
conferment upon the candidate, at a certain stage, of a name attributed to
the first of such artificers and signifying him to be still incompletely
purged of worldly possessions of this kind. These "base metals" require to
be discharged from the system by a long process of corrective purifying
thought and aspiration and to be transmuted into gold, or pure mind-stuff,
before real Initiation is possible. No inward fog must intervene between
the outer and innermost organs of consciousness when the time comes for
these to be unified. The Light of Truth cannot penetrate a mind crammed
with pernicious thought and with opinions to which it clings tenaciously .
It must empty itself of all pre-acquired knowledge and prejudices, and then
rise on the wings of its own genius into the realm of independent Thought
and there learn Truth at first hand by directly beholding it.
The incident of
attaining Light and self-knowledge is dramatically
emphasized in Masonic ceremonial . It is represented by that important
moment in the ritual of the Third Degree when darkness suddenly gives way
to bewildering light, in which light the candidate gazes back for the
first" time upon the remains of his own past and beholds the emblems of his
own mortality. He has now (at least in ceremony) surmounted the great
transitional crisis involved in becoming raised from a natural to a higher
order of humanity. He perceives his temporal organism to have been the
"tomb of transformation," in which the great change has been wrought . He
has risen from that tomb, and for him the old grave of the natural body has
lost its sting, and that spiritual unconsciousness, which is termed
"death," has been swallowed up in the victory won at last by his higher
eternal principle over his lower temporal one. The mystical sprig of acacia
has bloomed at the head of his grave, by the efflorescence of the Vital and
Immortal Principle in his purified mind and neural system .
Thus is portrayed
for us, in Masonic ceremony, the moment of attainment of
knowledge of one's true self. The incident, let it be emphasized, does not
involve the physical death of the body and its faculties, for to "the
companions of his former toils" the, purified mind will thereafter be
reunited . But thenceforth they will be his docile, plastic, obedient
servants, and no longer his master. He will continue to live in the world
for the remainder of his appointed span, no longer for his own sake, but
for the uplifting and advancement of his fellowmen to his own high degree.
His expansion of consciousness and wisdom will become part of his equipment
for practical work in the world. His own spiritual evolution is complete,
so far as the educative experience of this world can take it ; he lives now
to help on that of humanity.
A great and good
Brother, reviewing his long connection with Masonic
sanctuaries more than a century ago, wrote thus about Initiation :
"The only
initiation which I preach and seek with all the
ardour of my soul is that by which we may enter into
the heart of God and make God's heart enter into us,
there to form an indissoluble marriage which will
make us the friend, brother and spouse of our Divine
Redeemer." This attainment is the self-knowledge
pointed to by the Craft teaching, and to which that
teaching seeks to guide the reflections of every Masonic Initiation has no
other end than this conscious union between the
individual soul and the Universal Divine Spirit.
Louis Claude de
Saint Martin ; Theosophic Correspondence, with Baron
Kirchberger ; a work of great value and disclosing the nature of Masonic
work in French Lodges prior to the Revolution of 1789 .
This union is symbolized by the familiar conjunction of the square and the
compasses. The square is the emblem of the soul ; the compasses of the
Spirit which indwells in that soul. At first the Mason sees the points of
the compasses concealed behind the square, and, as he progresses, their
points emerge from that concealment until both become superimposed upon the
square. Thus is indicated the progressive subordination of the soul and
the corresponding coming forward of the ultimate Spirit into personal
consciousness, so that the Mason can " work with both those points," thus
becoming an efficient builder in the spirit and rendering the circle of his
own being complete by attaining conscious alliance with his ultimate and
only true self.
Centrally, in the ceiling of each Lodge, is exhibited this striking symbol.
It is the emblem of the Divine Presence in the Lodge; it is also the
emblem of that Presence at the spiritual centre of the individual Mason.
Its correspondence in the Christian Church is the perpetual light burning
before the high altar.
In the First and Second Craft Degrees the symbol is visible in the heavens
of Lodge. In the Third Degree it has become invisible, but its presence is
still manifested, being reflected in the small light in the East which, in
correspondence with the Divine Presence is as every Mason knows
inextinguishable even in one's darkest moments . In the Royal Arch Degree
it again becomes visible, but in another form and in another position-on
the floor of the Temple and at its centre, and in the form of a cubical
altar, a white stone, bearing the Sacred Name. In the course of the
Degrees, therefore, it has come down from heaven to earth ; Spirit has
descended to the plane of purified Matter; the Divine and the human have
been brought together and made one. God has become Man ; Man has been
unified with God, and has found the Divine Name written upon the altar of
his own heart .
In the significance of this symbol and its transpositions during the four
Degrees may, therefore, be discerned the whole purpose and end of
Initiation, the union of the personal soul with its Divine Principle.
Masonry has no other objective than this ; all other matters of interest
connected with it are but details subsidiary to this supreme achievement.
When the Lodge is opened, the mind and heart of every Brother composing it
should be deemed as also being opened to the "G" and all that it implies,
to the intent that those implications may eventually become realized facts
of experience . When the Lodge is closed, the memory of the "G" symbol and
its implications should be the chief one to be retained and pondered over
in the repository of the heart.
Further, great significance lies in the centrality of the "G." The Lodge is
grouped around it, not assembled immediately below it . It is as though
this Blazing Star or Glory in the centre burned with too fierce a light for
anything less pure and bright than itself to withstand the descent of its
direct rays ; and, accordingly, the floor of the Lodge is left open and
unoccupied ; and only at its extremities do the assembled Brethren sit,
removed from its direct rays . Directly beneath it lies the chequer-work
floor ; the symbol of the manifested creation, where the one White Light
from above becomes differentiated into perpetual duality and opposites of
light and darkness, good and evil, positive and negative, male and female,
as evidenced by the black and white squares, yet the whole held together in
a unity as is denoted by the symbolic skirt-work around the same .
The "G" therefore denotes the Universal Spirit of God, permeating and
unifying all things . It is a substitute for the Hebrew letter Yod, the
tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and out of which all the other letters
of that alphabet are constructed in correspondence with the truth that all
created things are modifications of the one primal Spirit . In the
Instruction-lecture of a Degree outside our present constitutions, the "G"
is explained as having a three-fold reference ; (i) the Glory of God, or
glory in the centre ; (2) Grandeur, or the greatness of perfection to which
man may become raised by initiation into union .with God at his centre ;
(3) Gom-El, a Hebrew word of praise for the Divine power and goodness in
designing that perfection and that union between the Creator and the
creature. There is also a Hebrew tradition that Gom-El was the word uttered
by Adam on first beholding the beauty of Eve and perceiving the ultimate
destiny of humanity.
The "G" had its equivalent in the Egyptian Mysteries in the solar symbol of
Ra, the spiritual Sun. In the great temple of the Greek Mysteries at
Delphi, where the Eleusinian initiations took place for seventeen
centuries, it was represented by the fifth letters of the Greek alphabet,
the E (or Eta) ; five being a numerical symbol of man in the Pythagorean
system, as evidenced by his five senses, the five-fold extension of his
hands and feet, and in accordance with considerations of a more abstruse
nature. Hence the five-pointed star (or pentagram) is also a symbol of man,
and expresses a variety of truths concerning him . In the rituals in the
Book of the Dead the candidate is described as a "keeper of five" ;
Operative fellow-craft Masons worked in batches of five, and a Speculative
fellow-craft Lodge to-day consists of five brethren ; all these allusions
having a deeper significance than can be explained here, but bearing upon
the present state of human evolutional development .
Plutarch records that the "E" was regarded as a symbol of the greatest
importance and instructiveness and was exhibited in three forms
(corresponding with our three Degrees), first in wood, afterwards in
bronze, and finally in gold. The progression signified a corresponding
advance of the candidate's moral and spiritual nature under the discipline
of Initiation. He is likened at first to soft. perishable wood; hardening
into the durability of bronze. ; which impure, alloyed metal finally
becomes sublimated into gold-the symbol of the attainment of purity, wisdom
and perfection to which Initiation leads.
Beyond this, however, the central symbol had another deep meaning. The
great Initiation-temples of antiquity, as also certain Christian Churches of
historic interest (such as those of Iona and Glastonbury, from which
Britain became Christianised), were erected at certain focal points of the
earth's surface known to the Initiates of the time as being magnetic
centres or nodal points of spiritual force peculiarly favourable for the
influx into this world of currents of Divine Power and for their
irradiation thence to surrounding regions . Each such place was called an
Omphalos, a navel, or mystical centre ; and the Temple at Delphi is related
to have been built where it was under divine guidance and for that purpose;
and we know that it became the centre of light and religion to the then
civilized Western world for seventeen centuries.
This historical fact and this occult principle are now reproduced in
Masonry. Every Lodge, every place of Initiation, is in theory-though not
nowadays in practice-held at a centre or physical focus point selected as
being favourable both to the initiation of those who enter it and to the
spiritual advancement of the uninitiated popular world resident in its
vicinity. "A city set on a hill cannot be hid." , A Temple or Lodge of
Brethren intelligently performing its work is not only engaged in a work of
spiritual building as regards its own members; it is, though perhaps
unconsciously, at the same time, generating and throwing off vibrations of
spiritual energy to all around it ; its occult influence extends, and its
radiations are of efficacy, to a greater range than one dreams of.
If, then, the Lodge be a spiritual focus-point, the centre of the Lodge,
where the "G" is exhibited, is' its most vital and sacred point ; the point
at which Divine Energy may be thought of as concentrated and specially
powerful . And the reason will become clear for placing the candidate at
that point at a certain moment in the Ceremony .
Why is he then placed in the centre ? Previously he has been placed, not
there, but in certain more removed places in the Lodge ; in the N.E. or the
S.E. corners where the intensity of the central Light is theoretically less
powerful, where it is tempered and adjusted to his as yet unperfected
organism, and where charges and instruction appropriate to his then state
of advancement are imparted to him . But when directed to be placed in the
Lodge-centre, he is called upon to stand, as it were, in direct alignment
with the descending ray of the Supernal Light and to bear the stress of its
full current . The intensity of that current can only be borne and
withstood by one who is perfect in all his parts and in whom the sensual,
emotional, and mental natures have been purified, rectified and brought
into harmony and to an alignment corresponding with the physical and moral
erectness of a just and upright man ; an unpurified man would run the peril
of having his organism injured or shattered by a current of that fiery
Power, by which every soul must sooner or later be tested, but which
consumes everything not assimilable with itself. The three Hebrew
"children" (i.e., initiates) who withstood unscathed the fiery furnace into
which they were plunged, typify the truth here - testified to .
When, therefore, a candidate is placed in the centre of the Lodge, beneath
the "G" symbol, let those assembled around him try to realize the intention
of what is thereby implied. Let them reflect that at that important moment,
more perhaps than at any other in the ceremonies, it is possible for the
celestial Light to descend upon the duly prepared candidate, to flood his
heart and expand his mind, and so to open his understanding to the
instruction then communicated to him that he may realize the spirit as well
as hear the letter of it, whilst standing in that sacred position. And let
them at that moment silently and earnestly invoke the Light of the centre,
that it may then consciously arise in both him and them, so that what is
done ceremonially may become for them both, a great fact of spiritual
experience .
The point is emphasized here with earnestness, because the Masonic
procedure of placing the candidate in the centre of the Lodge at an
important stage of his progress not only perpetuates a traditional and
purposeful ancient practice, but also accords with what occurs in
Initiations of a much more advanced and real character than it is possible
to speak of here, as those who become duly qualified will one day come to
find. By understanding and being faithful in the small things of even an
elementary and ceremonial system, one becomes educated for and prepared to
be entrusted with greater ones when the time for acquiring them arrives.
A most important part of the curriculum of the Ancient Mysteries was
instruction in Cosmology, the science of the Universe. The intention of
that instruction was to disclose to candidates the physical and
meta-physical constitution of the world and the place and destiny of man in
it. They were shown how the complex human organism reproduces the great
World and summarizes it in small, so that man may see himself to be a
microcosm or miniature copy of it. They were enlightened not only upon the
external visible aspect, but also upon the physically unseen and impalpable
aspect, both of the Universe and themselves . They learned truths
concerning the material and the ultramaterial sides of the world and were
taught that corresponding features were present in themselves . They
learned of the continual flux of matter, of the transiency of bodily forms,
and of the abiding permanence of the one Life or Spirit which has descended
and embodied itself in matter, and has there distributed and clothed itself
in an endless but progressive variety of forms from the mineral up to the
human, with the purpose of generating eventually a finished perfected
product as the result of the mighty process . There was demonstrated to
them the dual cosmic method of Involution and Evolution, by which the
universally diffused Life-force involves and circumscribes itself within
material l imitations and physical conditions, and thence evolves and
arises out of them, enriched by the experience. They were taught of the
different levels and graduations of the Universe-some of them material and
some ethereal,-the planes and sub-planes of it, upon which the great scheme
is being carried out ; which levels and planes, all progressively linked
together, constitute as it were one vast ladder of many rounds, staves, or
rungs ; a ladder which Tennyson once well described as
The world's great altar-stairs
Which slope through darkness up to God.
Candidates in the old systems were instructed in these matters before being
admitted to Initiation . The knowledge served to explain to them their own
nature and constitution and their place in the World system. It demonstrated
to them their own evolutionary possibilities and made clear to them why
Initiation-science had been instituted, and how Initiation itself was an
intensive means of accelerating the spiritual evolution of individuals who
were ripe for it, and capable of intelligently co-operating with and
expediting the cosmic process . With this knowledge they were then free
either to proceed to actual Initiation and undertake its obligations,
sacrifices and discipline, or to stand down and go no farther if they found
themselves unwilling, or without the courage, to undertake the arduous task
involved. Freedom of the personal will in this momentous choice was always
essential to admission to Initiation, and the same absence of constraint
still attaches to admission to modem Masonry .
The modem Mason, however, is left entirely without any cosmologic
instruction and to such hazy notions on the subject as he may happen to
hold . It becomes difficult, therefore, in regard to this and many other
matters of Masonic moment, to speak of the disciplina arcani to those who
may be either not interested in it or who would treat the information with
incredulity as something about which nothing certain is known or perhaps
knowable. Skepticism, freedom and independence of thought about matters of
a more or less occult nature have their undoubted place and value in the
outer ways of the world . But they are foreign to and inconsistent with the
mental attitude appropriate to those who, on entering a hall of Initiation,
are supposed to tyle the door to the outside world and its conceptions,
and, divesting - themselves of all ideas there preacquired, to offer
themselves as humble teachable pupils of a new and authoritative order of
knowledge . Where every one claims to be already possessed of a
sufficiently satisfactory explanation of the Universe and his place in it,
or is content to get along without one, and in either case prefers his
private judgment to any other that may be offered him, the soil for making
Initiates in any real sense is distinctly unfavourable. For such, however,
these pages are not written. They are offered only to the minority of
Brethren eager to learn what Masonry has to teach them upon matters in
which they earnestly seek knowledge and guidance.
Masonry, then, in exhibiting to them a simple ladder offers them a symbol
the significance of which is calculated to open widely the eyes of their
imagination. It is true that in the Instruction lecture the ladder is
expressly referred to that of Jacob in the familiar biblical episode, and
that that ladder is then given a moral significance and made to suggest the
way by which man may ascend from earth to heaven by climbing its symbolic
rungs, and especially by utilizing its three chief ones representing the
virtues Faith, Hope and Charity. This moral interpretation is warranted and
salutary . But it is far from exhaustive, and conceals rather than reveals
what "Jacob's ladder" was really intended to convey to the perspicuous when
the compilers of our system gave it the prominence they did . We may be
assured they had a much deeper purpose than merely reminding us of the
Pauline triad of theological virtues .
The ladder, then, covertly emphasizes the old cosmological teaching before
referred to . It is a symbol of the Universe and of its succession of
step-like planes reaching from the heights to the the depths. It is written
elsewhere that the Father's House has many mansions ; many levels and
resting places for His creatures in their different conditions and degrees
of progress . It is these levels, these planes and sub-planes, that are
denoted by the rungs and staves of the ladder . And of these there are, for
us in our present state of evolutionary unfoldment, three principal ones ;
the physical plane, the plane of desire and emotion, and the mental plane
or that of the abstract intelligence which links up to the still higher
plane of the spirit . These three levels of the world are reproduced in man. The first corresponds with his material physique, his sense-body ; the
second with his desire and emotional nature, which is a mixed element
resulting from the interaction of his physical senses and his
ultra-physical mind ; the third with his mentality, which is still farther
removed from his physical nature and forms the link between the latter and
his spiritual being .
The ladder, and its three principal staves, may be seen everywhere in
Nature. It appears in the septenary scale of musical sound with its three
dominants ; in the prismatic scale of light with its three primary colours; in our seven day scale of weekly time, in the septenary physiological
changes of our bodily organism, and the similar periodicities known to
physics and indeed to every branch of science . The perfect Lodge has seven
members, including three principal Officers . The advancement of the Third
Degree candidate to the East is by seven steps, the first three of which,
it will be remembered, are given special significance.
Thus the Universe and man himself are constructed ladder-wise, in an
orderly organized sequence of steps . The one universal substance composing
the differentiated parts of the Universe "descends" from a state of the
utmost ethereality by successive steps of increasing densification until
gross materialization is reached ; and thence "ascends" through a similarly
ordered gradation of planes to its original place, but enriched by the
experience gained by its activities during the process .
It was this cosmic process which was the subject of the dream or vision of
Jacob and which accounts for "Jacob's ladder" being given prominence in our
symbolism. What was "dreamed" or beheld by him with supersensual vision,
is equally perceptible to-day by any one whose inner eyes have been opened.
Every real Initiate is one who has attained an expansion of consciousness
and faculty enabling him to behold the ethereal worlds revealed to the
Hebrew patriarch, as easily as the uninitiated man beholds the phenomenal
world with his outer eyes . The Initiate is able to "see the angels of God
ascending and descending"; that is, he can directly behold the great
stairway of the Universe and watch the intricate but orderly mechanism of
involution, differentiation, evolution, and re-synthesis, constituting the
Life-process . He can witness the descent of human essences or souls
through planes of increasing density and decreasing vibratory rate,
gathering around them as they come veils of matter from each, until finally
this lowest level of complete materialization is reached, where the great
struggle for supremacy between the inner and the outer man, between the
spirit and the flesh, between the real self and the unreal selves and veils
built round it, has to be fought out on the chequer-work floor of our
present existence, among the black and white opposites of good and evil,
light and darkness, prosperity and adversity . And he can watch the upward
return of those who conquer - in the strife and, attaining their
regeneration and casting off or transmuting the "worldly possessions"
acquired during their descent, ascend to their Source, pure and unpolluted
from the stains of this imperfect world. But to no man comes such vision as
this unless he too be a Jacob who flees from the clash and hurly of secular
activities into the solitude of his own soul, and in that barren wilderness
interrogates himself and struggles agonizingly to penetrate the mystery of
his existence, to read its purpose, and tear out the last secret of his own
being . So, perchance, he may fall asleep, his head at last quietly
pillowed upon that hard stone, against which hitherto he has been blindly
dashing it . And then by the surrender of his own will and mental
activities, and in the silence and quietude of the senses, his own inmost
great Light may break, and from that new found centre he will see and know
and find the answer to all his needs. For, in the words of an ancient
record of Initiation, "the sleep of the body becomes the awaking of the
soul, and the closing of the eyes true vision, and silence becomes
impregnated with God. This happened to me when I received the supreme
authentic Word . I became God-inspired. I arrived at Truth . Wherefore I
give from my soul and whole strength, blessing to the Father." (Hermes,
Poemandres, I. 30).
Jacob's vision and ladder, therefore, exemplify the attainment of
Initiation, the expansion of consciousness that comes when the Light of the
centre is found, and the cosmic vision that then becomes possible . The
same truth is taught in a little treatise, of great instructiveness to
every Mason, written by the initiate philosopher Porphyry in the third
century and entitled On the Cave of the Nymphs. It is an exposition of a
passage in Homer's Odyssey, which he shows likewise to be a veiled story of
the soul's wanderings, of its crossing the rough seas of life and enduring
the tempests and trials of this world, and finally perfecting itself and
escaping into the haven of peace . The passage describes a certain dark
cave, above which grew an olive-tree, and into which certain nymphs entered
at one end and became busy in weaving purple garments for themselves; and
it was not possible to leave the cave save by a gate at the other end and
after having ceased to be satisfied with the pleasure of inhabiting that
agreeable but benighted place and sought a way of escape. Porphyry thus
explains the allegory : The dark cave is that of the body into which the
soul (a "nymph" or spiritual being) enters and weaves around itself a
garment of flesh and blood, and indulges in sense-gratification alien to
its real nature. The nymph-soul has descended through the planes of the
Cosmos until it has entered this cave by the "gate of man" (i.e ., by
evolving to human status), and it can only leave it by passing out through
the opposite gate, the "gate of the gods" (i.e., by becoming perfected and
divinised) . This it cannot do save with the help . of oil from the olive
planted at the top of the cavern ; the oil of Wisdom which shall initiate
the soul and guide it to the way out to the higher worlds and the regions
of the blessed.
Porphyry's exposition continues thus : "In this cave, therefore, says
Homer, all external worldly possessions must be deposited . Here, naked and
as a suppliant, afflicted, in body, casting aside everything superfluous,
and renouncing all sensual energies, one must sit at the foot of the olive
and consult with Minerva (Wisdom) by what means we may effectually destroy
that hostile rout of passions which lurk insidiously in the secret recesses
of the soul.....It will not be a simple task to become liberated from this
sensible life ; but he who dares to do this must transmute himself, so that
being at length divested of the torn garments, by which his true self is
concealed, he may recover the ruined empire of his soul ."
The Mason who reads this parable will not fail to see in it the allusion to
the preparation of candidates . for initiation, or to recognise that the
cave and the olive-tree growing above it correspond precisely with the
grave of Hiram Abiff and the sprig of acacia planted at its head. Both of
these allude, of course, to the human body in which the true spiritual self
of man lies buried and imprisoned, and from the bondage of which it can
only be freed by cultivating and lighting the oil of wisdom (or,
alternatively, of causing the sprig of acacia to blossom) which will
enlarge his consciousness and reveal to him his path, through the Universe .
We have each descended into this world by the steps of Jacob's ladder ; we
have each to ascend from it by the same steps . In some Masonic diagrams
and tracing boards, upon the ladder is exhibited a small cross in a tilted,
unstable position as if ascending it . That cross represents all who are
engaged in mounting the ladder to the heights, and who
Rise by stepping-stones
From their dead selves to higher things.
Each carries his cross, his own cruciform body, as he ascends; the
material vesture whose tendencies are ever at cross-purposes with the
desire of his spirit and militate against the ascent. Thus weighted, each
must climb, and climb alone; yet reaching out-as the secret tradition
teaches and the arms of the tilted cross signify-one hand to invisible
helpers above, and the other to assist the ascent of feebler brethren
below. For as the sides acid separate rungs of the ladder constitute a
unity, so all life and all lives are fundamentally one, and none lives to
himself alone.
Indeed Life, and the ladder it climbs, are one and indissociable. The
summit of both reaches to and disappears out of ken into the heavens ; the
base of both rests upon the earth; but these two terminals that of spirit
and that of matter-are but opposite poles of a single reality which cannot
be known as a unity or otherwise than in its differentiated aspects of many
planes, many mansions, many rounds or staves, except by him who has unified
them in himself and become able to ascend and descend upon the ladder at
will. But this is the privilege only of the Initiate skilled in that
science of life which teaches how to mount the Scala Perfectionis, as a
famous classical work of the isth century terms the ladder of initiation,
known to Masons under the glyph of "Jacob's Ladder."
The novitiate Mason is taught to regard his normal, natural personality as
but a foundation-stone upon which he is recommended to erect a
superstructure, perfect in all its parts and honourable to the builder.
To how many does this instruction mean anything more than a general pious
counsel to become merely a man of strong moral character and virtue ? It is
something, of course, to fulfill that elementary standard, which needs,
however, no membership of a Secret Order for its accomplishment ; but the
recommendation implies a very different meaning from that, as a little
reflection will show . It is not a recommendation merely to improve the
condition of the already existing foundation-stone (the personality), but to
erect upon that foundation something which which previously did not exist,
something which will transcend and outrange it, although built upon it. For
the reader who is unversed in the deeper side of Masonic significance, and
is unaware of the hidden nature of it as thoroughly known to the original
exponents of the science, the subject may prove difficult . It must
therefore be explained at the outset that the superstructure to be erected
is the organization of an ethereal or spiritual body in which the skilled
Mason can function in independence of his physical body and natural
personality .
The theory of Masonry presupposes that man is a fallen creature ; that his
natural personality is a transient and unreal expression of his true self
as conceived in the Divine Mind; and that, under appropriate tuition and
self-discipline, he may become rebuilt and reorganized into the original
condition from which he has fallen. The present natural personality,
however, is the basis or foundation- stone out of which that reorganization
'can proceed, and within it already exists, though in a condition of chaos
and disorder, all the material requisite to the purpose.
Building a superstructure upon one's present self involves much more than
merely improving one's moral character. It is not a novice's task, although
the advice to perform it is rightly given in the Apprentice-stage . It is a
work of occult science, only to be undertaken by those educated and skilled
in that science . It is the science to which 'the Christian Master referred
in the words : "Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down
first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it ?
Lest, after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all
that behold begin to mock, saying, `This man began to build but was not
able to finish!"' Accordingly the Mason desirous of building a tower or
superstructure should "sit down first and count the cost" by acquiring a
thorough understanding of what is involved ; and before he is able even to
begin the erection of such a building, he will find a good deal of rough
labourer's work has first to be done upon himself in clearing the ground
for the intended structure.
There is an old Masonic Degree, not comprised in our present Constitutions,
devoted specially too this subject . It is called the Degree of Grand
Architect, and throws great light on the intention of those who, well
understanding the secret science, made reference in our Ritual to the
building of a superstructure .
In that Degree the reference is to "building structures in the air," and it
is taught that this is the: work only of grand architects, "being too
great fog inferior craftsmen, who only know by admiring theme at a distance
when done ."
"Structures in the air !" All structures, save subterranean ones, rise into
the air,-the average reader will say ; yet not buildings of brick or stone
are here meant. Again, building castles in the air is a familiar term for
indulgence in day-dreaming and fanciful speculation ; but, whilst all
thought energy is constructive and creates objective form upon the plane of
mind, we may be assured that the sages who perpetuated Masonic science were
innocent of recommending the practice of anything so futile and unpractical. The airy structure to which they allude is the formation of a
super-physical ethereal body, a "body of mist" as Hesiod and other Greek
classics describe it, in which the adept Mason may consciously function in
the finer planes of life and apart from his gross physical organism, and in
which he will continue to live when the latter has become permanently
discarded . It is spoken of by Origen, the Christian Father of the second
century, as follows : "Another body, a spiritual and ethereal one, is
promised us ; a body not subject to physical touch, nor seen by physical
eyes, nor burdened with weight, and which shall be metamorphosed according
to the different regions in which it shall be . In that spiritual body the
whole of it will be an eye, the whole of it an ear, the whole serve as
hands, the whole as feet" ; implying that all the now distributed faculties
will be unified in that body into one, as was the case with man before the
fall and descent into matter and multiplicity .
Let us justify these observations by some pertinent references to the
subject in the great text-book of Initiation-Science, the Volume of the
Sacred Law ; though they might be abundantly supplemented from other
sources. Like the famous Orphic Hymns of the Pythagorean and Eleusinian
Schools of the Mysteries, the Psalms of our Bible are an anthology of hymns
of the Hebrew Initiates and are full of Masonic allusion and
instructiveness . In the 48th Psalm, the disciple of spiritual science is
directed to take a walk round the symbolic City of Jerusalem ; he was told
to mark well its bulwarks, to observe its palaces, and particularly to pay
attention to the great tower of the Temple, which, like a modern cathedral
spire, rose into the air above all other buildings, so that he might not
only himself appreciate the symbolism of what he saw, but might be in a
position to interpret its significance to "them that come after" ; that is,
to junior students of the science.
He thus received a striking object-lesson in the analogy of material
buildings to spiritual ones . In the massive defensive walls of the city he
was to recognize the strength, permanence and resisting power of the
spiritual organism or "holy city" which he must build for himself in
exchange for, but upon the foundation of, the frail perishable temporal
body. In the palaces of the mighty, with their gorgeous interiors and
stores of costly furnishings and precious objects of art, he was to
perceive that his own interior must become correspondingly beautified and
enriched with spiritual treasures . But in the great heaven-pointing tower,
to which his attention was specially directed, he was to see the symbol of
a structure as far transcending his present temporal organism as the
Temple-spire outranged the adjacent buildings at its feet . From this he
was to deduce the necessity of building and projecting upwards from his
lower organization, a "tower," a superior spiritual body, rising into and
capable of functioning in the "air" or more tenuous and ethereal worlds
than this physical one . This is the "structure in the air" which only
"Grand Architects" are competent to raise ; this is the "superstructure"
which our Entered Apprentices are enjoined to aspire to building .
Let us turn next to the further pertinent information on the subject given
by the Apostle-Initiate to his Corinthian pupils . He instructs them on
this subject of superstructures . How is it possible to rear them ? "How
are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come ?" (He is not
speaking of the physically defunct, but of that condition of atrophied
spiritual consciousness characterizing the normal animal man, which is
always described as a state of "death" in the biblical and other writings
on the subject) . He proceeds to explain that the physical body itself
cannot be raised, since corruption cannot inherit incorruption, but that
nevertheless there can be a "resurrection from the dead" through a
sublimation of its vital essences, which can be reorganized and
reconstituted into a new body of subtle matter on a supra-physical level .
First comes the natural body we all wear to -begin with ; but out of it can
be evolved a psychical body. The former is an entirely earthy vesture
exhibiting an illusory unreal self to the world ; the latter is the body of
our true spiritual self (or "lord from heaven") which hitherto has remained
masked and buried within that temporal vesture ; "sown" in it as a seed,
but capable of bursting its sheath and being raised from its former
impotence to "power" (activity and conscious function). He properly speaks
of it as one of the secrets and mysteries of Initiation, and his familiar
words may thus be paraphrased : "I am expounding to you a mystery, one of
the arcana of Initiation. We are not designed to remain always asleep in
this drugged, deadened state of consciousness in which we are plunged,
where we suffer the illusion that we are really alive, but are not . In the
course of our evolution the due time comes for each of us to awake out of
that sleep, and to become changed, transmuted ; for our consciousness to be
transposed to a higher level. We have borne the earthly human image ; we
have now to exchange it for an ethereal one of finer texture and purer
quality . The change, the transposition of consciousness from the old to
the new centre, comes suddenly (though it may take long to prepare and
purify ourselves for its coming). When it occurs it comes with an inwardly
heard crash, like a trumpet-blast, as the nervous system and
brain-structures react to the stress upon them involved in the transition ."
( It must be explained that the "trumpet" and "last trumpet" are technical
terms among Initiates for the spiral, trumpet-shaped, whorls or vortices
occurring in subtle matter under stresses, audible to those in whom the
change occurs . The reference to the "sound of the last trumpet" stands for
a physiological experience as the last fine physical strands of the old
nature are, as it were, snapped and the nervous system re-electrified . In
the East this experience is called the "end of the world," since for the
Initiate it means the termination of his old worldly consciousness and its
replacement by one of a much more vivid and intense quality .)
The Apostle further explains that for this newly evolved Ego or conscious
centre there is an appropriate body, for there are celestial as well as
terrestrial bodies. There cannot be consciousness apart from a formal
vehicle for it, and as the old earthy body has served (and will so continue
to serve) for ordinary mundane purposes, so will the newly -evolved
consciousness possess its own separate appropriate psychic or spiritual
body for function upon supraphysical levels . The Initiate of this high
degree, therefore, will possess a twofold organization ; his
ordinary physical one (the "companion of his former toils") and his
supra-physical one, and will be able to utilize and function in each . He
will have built The his "tower" ; his "superstructure in the air ."
The superstructure must be perfect in all its structure parts and so be
honourable to the builder. What are its parts?
Man, even in his natural, unregenerate, imperfectly evolved state, is a
highly composite creature . Blended with his purely physical frame are
three other supra-physical, but quasi-physical, bodies ; his etheric body
(the "double" or wraith), his emotional or desire body, and his mental
organization or body ; whilst over and beyond these, and not necessarily,
in functional alignment with them, exists his ultimate spiritual self which
distinguishes him from the sub-human creatures . These are his "parts," and
they are but too often extremely ill-organized, uncoordinated and
unbalanced . If they be imperfectly organized in the lower natural man, how
can they be expected to be able to contribute requisite sublimations of
themselves for the up-building of a body upon a higher level ? All bodily
and mental disease and infirmity originates in disorder in these inner
bodies, which disorder thereupon becomes reflected forwards and manifested
in the physical husk. Unless the inner natures be disciplined and organized
before the gross mortal vesture is shed at physical death, how can one
enter the ethereal kingdoms otherwise than "maimed," without a
"wedding-garment," and in a distorted shape, not perfect in all its parts,
and anything but honourable to the builder ?
But, as we have long since seen, the first duty of every spiritual
Craftsman is the purification and discipline of these bodies, and the
elimination from himself of all base metals therein of which he has himself
been an artificer. Only in proportion to the achievement of this arduous
task can he hope to bring these "parts" into order, into subjection to his
will, and into coordinated function and alignment, and so in the fullest
sense stand erect, a just and upright man and Mason. He need not trouble
to know how his superstructure will develop or to what extent or measure of
perfection he may have built it. For it will become automatically built in
his heights proportionately as he schools himself in his depths and tests
his work by the continual application to it of the cross (which is the
square, level and plumb-rule in combination). When the time comes for his
consciousness to be raised to that superior level and he hears the call
"Friend, come up higher!" he will find the superstructure he has been
building in the darkness below, perfect in all its parts and honourable to
himself. He will have climbed a section of the life-ladder; he will
himself have built, dedicated and consecrated King Solomon's Temple; and,
through the result of his own labour upon himself, that resplendent body
will appear to him more like the work of the Great Architect of the
Universe than that of human hands .
There are, however, farther sections of the infinite ladder to be climbed,
even when this high level has been won. From thence there remains still
further building to be done, a body to be fabricated manifesting still
loftier wisdom, strength and beauty . For was not the first symbolic Temple
to be destroyed and become replaced by a second, of which it is written
that "the glory of the former house is not to be compared with that of the
latter ?"
But this still loftier work need not now be treated of. Let it suffice if
what has already been said assists any reader to the building of his first
superstructural Temple.
These expositions are being offered in their present order with a purpose.
That purpose is to outline, as nearly and systematically as may be, the due
sequence and progressive stages of the work of spiritual Craftsmanship or
self-building. We have traced that work from its inception in the heart's
desire to pass from darkness to light and attain a higher order of life and
mode of being, through its stages of the outer and inward purification
essential to that attainment, and through the crisis of a deeper gloom, a
voluntary abnegation of and dying to all the attributes that go to
constitute the natural personality, until the aspirant who endures all
these to the end is finally rewarded by receiving his "crown of life," as
the biblical metaphor very fittingly terms that exalted order of conscious
being which marks the fulfillment of human spiritual evolution. And we have
shown how, in winning that high degree of consciousness, he has
simultaneously built for himself out of the sublimations of his original
nature a new superstructural body appropriate to it and in which it can
function. In the abounding wealth of the symbols and veiled verbal
references in our rituals and instruction lectures to the details of this
truly scientific work, there remain, however, many others needing
explanation, some of which can now be considered more advantageously than
at our earlier stage and with better chance of being understood .
One of these is the cable-tow. In my previous book it was explained that
its use in the E .A. Degree taught the beginner the useful lesson that he
who has once felt within him the impulses of the central Light and been
moved to seek it should never recede from his quest and, indeed, cannot do
so without doing violence to the highest within him, a violence equivalent
to moral suicide . At the same time, he is also enjoined not to be unduly
precipitate, not ignorantly and rashly to rush forward in an unprepared
inward state to grasp the secrets of his own being, in which case peril of
another kind threatens him; but to proceed humbly, meekly, cautiously and
under instructed guidance . The ancient maxim "Know thyself," was coupled
with another, Ne quid nimis, "Nothing in excess" ; for the science can only
be learned and applied gradually . It will unfold itself more and more as
it is diligently studied and pursued.
The foregoing explanation of the cable-tow is but a very partial one, and
inculcates a salutary, but purely moral, piece of advice . The deeper
significance is a psycho-physiological one, and has to do with the
mysteries of the human organism . It should not be overlooked that the
cable-tow is given prominence not only in the First Degree . ' It is again
mentioned in the obligation in the Third Degree, whilst it appears under
another guise in that working-tool of the Master-Mason which acts upon a
centre-pin . And finally it reappears in the Royal Arch Degree as a cord or
life-line. It is requisite to understand what is involved in something to
which such recurring prominence is given .
Let us first recall what has been already stated about the human organism
being a composite structure of several natures or bodies (physical,
etheric, emotional, and mental), fixated in a unity or synthesis ; each of
such bodies being constituted of gross or subtle matter, of differing
density and vibratory rate, and the whole coordinated by the central
divine Principle (which may or may not yet have come forward into the
formal conscious mind, although there are few in whose awareness it is not
lurkingly present and more or less active as "conscience.")
Thus the human constitution may be likened to a number of glass tumblers
placed one within the other and with, say, a night-light (representing the
central Principle) inserted in the inmost one . The glass of the tumblers
may be imagined as of progressive thickness and coarseness, from within
outwards, and some of them as coloured, dirty, or not closely fitting in
with the others . The coarser, dirtier, and more opaque the glasses, the
less able will be the central light to shine through them ; a single glass
may be so opaque as to prevent the passage of the light through all the
rest. Here, then, is an object lesson in the need for the inward
purification of our various constituent sheaths, and for becoming "perfect
in all our parts ." As William Blake said very truly : "If the gates of
human perception were thoroughly cleansed, we should perceive everything as
it is-infinite ; but man has closed himself up till he sees all things only
through the narrow chinks of his own cavern ."
Another illustration . Human compositeness may be compared with the
concentric skins or sheaths of a vegetable bulb (an onion, or hyacinth) .
Here the sheaths are all equally pure and coordinated ; and because the
bulb is perfect in all its parts or sheaths, and, when planted, fulfils the
whole law of its nature, its life-force bursts its natural bonds, throws up
a self-built superstructure into the air, and there effloresces into the
bloom which is its "crown of life" or fullness of development. Man should do
this, and, as we have shown, this is what .the Mason is taught to do . But
man having (what the bulb has not), freedom of will to fulfill or to violate.the law of his nature, has chosen the latter course, and consequently by
indulgence in perverse desire and wrongly directed thought, has fouled and
disorganized his sheaths . Hence his spiritual darkness and his liability
to all forms of disease . The central Principle cannot shine through his
opacity, lighting up his mind and governing his desires and actions . It
remains imprisoned within him. , He sees, thinks and knows only from his
self-darkened outer sheaths, and is misguided and illuded accordingly.
For a final example, let us turn to - the instructive familiar episode in
the Gospels of the storm overtaking a boat containing a number of men, of
whom the Chief was "asleep in the hinder part of the boat." The boat
typifies the human organism ; its occupants, its various parts and
faculties, including the as yet unawakened Master-Principle resident in its
depths or "hinder part." An emotional upheaval occurs ; the rough waves of
passion threaten to wreck the whole party . A brain-storm arises ;
intemperate gusts of fright, wrong headedness, and mental un-control, make
the position still worse. The extremity is sufficiently acute to awaken the
Master-Principle into activity whose beneficent power is able instantly to
still those unruly winds, and waves, which suddenly are reduced to a great
peace.
Every Master-Mason, who is a real and not merely a titular one, is able to
perform this "miracle" in himself ; perhaps in others also. There is
nothing super-natural about it to him. It is possible to him because he
"has the Mason Word and second sight" ; he both understands the composite
structure of the human organism, can visually discern the disordered part
or parts, and can apply healing, harmonizing, vibratory power from his own
corresponding part to the seat of mischief, saying to this disordered
mental part or that unruly emotional sheath, "Peace, be still !" Every
Master-Mason is therefore also a Master-Physician, able to benefit patients
in a medical sense, and also to visualize the inner condition of those who
look to him for instruction and initiation in a Masonic sense, to advise
upon their interior needs and moral ailments, and help them to purify and
align their disordered natures . But this is not possible save to one who
himself has become pure and rectified in all his parts; the physician must
first heal himself before he can communicate either physical or moral
health to others .
This promise about the compositeness of the human structure and the
existence in us of a series of independent, yet coordinated "parts" or
sheaths, has been necessary before we can speak directly of the cable-tow.
What is it that connects these parts ? And are these parts dissociable from
one another?
We know that they are normally in close association and to this association
applies the enjoinder that what God hath joined, man shall not put asunder. What the age-long process of evolution has built up with infinite
patience and care is not to be tampered with for improper purposes, or even
by well meaning but, as yet, unenlightened experiment in the supposed
interests of science ; a point upon which the old Masters and teachers of
our science are specially insistent, for reasons which now need not be
entered upon .
Nevertheless, a measure of dissociation does occur naturally in even the
most healthy and well organised people (and of cases of abnormal psychic
looseness of constitution we need not speak) . It occurs in sleep, when the
consciousness may be vividly active, whether in an orderly or disorderly
manner; people "travel" in their sleep . It occurs at times of illness or
violent shock . It may be induced by alcohol or drugs ; the "anesthetic
revelation" is a well recognized phenomenon. Under any of these conditions
there may be a complete ec-stasis, or conscious standing out or away of the
Ego from the physical body . Apparitions and even action at a distance are
well accredited facts . Such phenomena are explicable only upon the
suppositions of the existence of a subtler vehicle than - the gross body,
of the fact that consciousness becomes temporarily transferred from the
latter to the former, and that the two are capable of conjoint function in
complete independence of the physical brain and body.
What preserves the connection between the two "parts" thus disjoined, and
makes possible their subsequent re-coalescence, is the "cable-tow." It is a
connective thread of matter of extreme tenuousness and elasticity issuing
from the physical abdominal region and maintaining the same kind of
connection with the extended subtle body as the string with which a boy
flies a kite. As the boy can pull in the kite by the string, so does the
extruded subtle body become drawn back to its physical base . Were the
kite-string severed during the kite's flight, the kite would collapse or be
blown away. Similarly, were the human "cable-tow" permanently severed,
death would ensue and each of the severed parts go to its own place.
Biblically this human "cable-tow" is called the "silver cord" in the well
known passage, "or ever the silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl is
broken ; then shall the body return to the earth and the spirit to God who
gave it ." "Silver" is the technical esoteric term for psychical substance,
as gold is for spiritual, and iron or brass for physical . Its
physiological correspondence is the umbilical cord connecting the child
with its mother. Its analogue in ecclesiastical vestments is the girdle
worn by the high-priests of the Hebrew and by the priests and monastics of
the Christian Church .
Everyone unconsciously possesses the cable-tow, and it comes into use
during sleep, when a less or greater measure of involuntary dissociation of
our parts occurs . A Master, however, is one who has outgrown the
incapacities to which the undeveloped average man is subject. Unlike the
latter, he is in full knowledge and control of all his parts ; whether his
physical body be awake or wrapped in sleep, he maintains unbroken
consciousness . He is able at will to shut off consciousness of temporal
affairs and apply it to supra-physical ones . He can thus function at a
distance from his physical body, whether upon the mundane or upon, higher
planes of the cosmic ladder. His cable-tow, of infinite expansiveness,
unwinds from his centre-pin and, stretching like the kite-string, enables
him to travel where he will in his subtle body and to rejoin and reanimate
his physical one at will . Hence it is that the Master- Mason is pledged to
answer and obey all signs and summonses from any Master-Mason's lodge if
within the reach of his cable-tow ; and such assemblies, it should be
remembered, are contemplated therefore as taking place not at any physical
location, but upon an ethereal plane. For corroboration of what is possible
in this respect to a Master, one should reflect upon the instances of
-bi-location, passing through closed walls, and manifesting at a distance,
recorded of the Great Exemplar in the Gospels . These are representative of
what is feasible to anyone attaining Mastership .
The cable-tow, therefore, is given prominence to the reflective Craftsman
as a help towards understanding his own constitution, and to foreshadow to
him work that lies before him when is he fitted to undertake it ;-work
which now may seem to him impossible and incredible. For as the skirret
(which is the cable-tow in another form) is intended for the skilful
architect to draw forth a line to mark out the ground for the intended
structure, so the competent builder of the spiritual body will unwind his
own "silver cord" when he learns how to function consciously on the
ascending ladder of supraphysical planes, and to perceive the nature of the
superstructure he himself is intended to construct .
Further importance attaches to the significance of the cable-tow from the
fact testified to at the admission to our Order of every new candidate for
ceremonial initiation. For all real Initiation involves the use of the
actual "silver cord" or life-line ; since such Initiation always occurs
when the physical body is in a state of trance or sleep, and when the
temporarily liberated consciousness has been transferred to a higher level. Thence it subsequently is brought back to the physical organism, the
cerebral and nerve centres of which become illumined, revitalized and
raised to a higher pitch of faculty than was previously possible. The
perspicacious Royal Arch Mason will not fail to perceive how this truth is
dramatically exemplified in that Degree.
This subject might be considerably extended, for whilst in a ceremonial
system like the Masonic, only one initiation is portrayed (or, rather where
initiation only occurs once), yet in the actual experience of
soul-architecture Initiation succeeds Initiation upon increasingly higher
levels of the ladder as the individual becomes correspondingly ripe for
them, able to bear their strain and to assimilate their revelations . What
the Craft teaching and symbols inculcate is a principle common to every
degree of real Initiation that one may prove worthy to attain . For each
upward step the candidate for the heights must be prepared as he is in the
E .A . Degree; at each there will be the same peril in turning back, and
at each the same menace directed against rashly rushing forward.
So much was said in my former volume, The Meaning of Masonry, in
explanation of the Masonic Apron, that it seems needless to speak at length
of it again . Yet, to maintain continuity of thought, it seems desirable
once more to refer to its symbolism at this point, since we have been
closely considering the manner in which consciousness becomes expanded and
enveloped in bodies or vehicles appropriate to that expansion ; and we have
been dealing with the arcanum or "mystery" propounded by St. Paul as to how
the "dead" (the as yet uninitiated and spiritually unquickened), are raised
up to a new order of life and the new kind of embodiment they take on, or
automatically fabricate, in the process.
Consciousness cannot exist without body . "To every seed (or conscious
unit) its own body," says the Apostle-Initiate; or, as we Masons may
paraphrase it, to every Degree of life is allotted the appropriate Apron,
proclaiming the wearer's spiritual rank . As no one can enter the Lodge
unclothed with the Apron, so no one can enter any of the unseen worlds
without wearing a body appropriate. There are bodies terrestrial, adapted
The to use on the lower planes of life ; and bodies Apron celestial or
ethereal, adapted to functioning on higher ones. Man is a composite of many
bodies, one within the other ; though ordinarily he is unaware of it and
has not yet organized them and come to know them separately, as the
Initiate is expected to do .
The physical body is but one, and the grossest, of the terrestrial bodies ;
it is but a plaster of organized chemical particles, within and around
which his subtler bodies exist, and for which it forms a nexus or
fixation-point. When totally discarded at death it disintegrates ; when
partially abandoned in sleep or anmsthesia its energies persist passively,
and connection with it is kept by the cabletow or "silver cord." In each
case the Ego, whether aware of it or not, stands minus its physical sheath
and enclosed in its remaining ones. And a similar divesting of each
successive body may take place until only the ultimate Ego remains .
That Ego, the ultimate Divine Principle in man, is represented by the
triangular flap of the Masonic Apron. The triangle (or pyramid form) is the
geometrical symbol for Spirit or Fire, and the ultimate Spirit of man may
be likened to a pointed flame or tongue of fire . (The word "pyramid"
derives from the Greek word pur, fire).
The body or form (or rather the succession of bodies or forms), which that
Ego assumes on descending into manifestation through the ladder-like planes
of the Universe, aggregating to itself and organizing around itself
material from each, is represented by the lower quadrangular part of the
Apron . The quadrangle, square, or superficies, is the geometrical symbol
for
Body, Form, Physicalisation . The quadrangle is further appropriate because
(1) all Body is constituted of four elements, earth, water, air, fire ; (2)
because the human organism is fourfold, a complex of four distinct
departments, physical, etheric, emotional and mental, and (3) because in
man the three sub-human kingdoms (mineral, vegetable and animal), are
unified into the human synthesis .
The candidate's first investiture with the Apron is symbolic therefore of
his Ego's entrance into this world, and becoming clothed with form or body.
He is meant to realize himself as a sevenfold being, perfectly constituted
originally in the Divine Mirid ; his triangle of Spirit combining with the
quadrangle of materialized form to make up the perfect number seven . He is
meant to realize that he has descended to a condition of embodiment and
limitation of consciousness for the purpose of acquiring experience in
those conditions, and of performing certain work upon himself which shall
raise him- to full realization of his own ultimate nature and of the Divine
purpose in him, and that though his present state or form is one of
restrictedness and humiliation, it will never disgrace him if he never
disgraces it.
In the First Degree, the triangular flap of the Apron is kept erect . In
the Second it is lowered . Thereby is denoted the physiological truth that
the Ego or human Spirit on entering this world at birth does not
immediately attain full embodiment, but at first is, as it were, an
overhovering presence, organically connected with the body, but only The
gradually taking possession of it . We recognize this Apron truth in
practical life. Moral and legal responsibility is never attributed to a
child under seven years of age, for the moral sense has not yet developed .
Important physiological changes connected with puberty occur at the age of
fourteen . Civic responsibility is denied until twenty-one is reached . The
basic reason for all this is the occult truth that the Ego does not attain
its maximum of incarnation until twenty-one. Accordingly it is not until
age is reached |
