THE TRUE FREEMASONRY: EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC.
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"... the Grand Lodge above, where the world's Great Architect lives
and reigns for ever."

(Masonic Ritual).

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INTRODUCTION.

The method of treating a subject of vast magnitude necessarily
varies with the character, the knowledge and the mental attitude of
those to whom the writer addresses himself. To treat fully from all
points of view of the Esoteric Craft of Freemasonry would require
many volumes, countless references to ancient and modern books,
some well-nigh inaccessible to the ordinary student, and a
profundity of scholarship far beyond anything that we possess,
probably beyond that possessed by any human being now alive: yet
the materials exist, their locality is known, and some day,
perhaps, they may be compiled.  Meantime, however, signs are not
wanting that a higher Masonic consciousness is awakening in the
Craft.  Numbers of the Order are gradually, and here and there,
becoming alive to the fact that much more than meets the eye and
ear lies beneath the surface of Masonic doctrine and symbols.  They
reflect that the phenomenal growth of the Craft is scarcely
accountable for upon the supposition that modern Speculative
Freemasonry perpetuates nothing more than the private associations
that once existed in connection with the operative builders' trade.
Upon a little thought it becomes pretty obvious that our Third
Degree and the central legend that forms the climax of the Craft
system cannot have, and can never have had, any direct or practical
bearing upon, or connection with, the trade of the operative mason.
It may be urged that we have our great charity system and that the
social side of our proceedings is a valuable and humanising asset.
Granted, but other people and other societies are philanthropic and
social as well as we; and a secret society is not necessary to
promote such ends, which are merely supplemental to the original
purpose of the Order. The discernment of such facts as these, then,
suggests to us that the Craft has not yet entered into the full
heritage of understanding its own system and that side-matters
connected with Freemasonry which we have long emphasised so
strongly, valuable in their own way as they are, are not after all
the primary and proper work of the Order. The work of the Order, is
to initiate into certain secrets and mysteries, and obviously if
the Order fails to expound its own secrets and mysteries and
thereby confer real initiations as distinguished from passing
candidates through certain formal ceremonies, it is not fulfilling
its original purpose whatever other incidental good it may be
doing.

Now as these facts are the basis upon which this lecture proceeds,
let us at the outset make our first point by stating that as the
progress in the Craft of every Brother, admitted into its rinks is
by gradual, successive stages, in like manner the understanding of
the Masonic system is also a matter of gradual development. Thus,
if the idea of the Craft, which we shall endeavour to set forth in
this Paper, be, as we believe it to be, true and supported by the
most abundant authority, then the perverse purposes to which its
primary designs have been put, the debasing of the pure ideal left
by the original founders, was not only inevitable but actually
essential, a vital part of the scheme. These abuses are "in"
Freemasonry, but not "of"  Freemasonry, and if it were possible to
conceive an Order into which no such imperfections could possibly
enter, it might indeed be a glorified assemblage of Adepts, but it
would most certainly not be the Masonic Order on earth.  The
elementary propositions of our subject are easy enough to state and
will probably not be disputed by students: viz. that roughly three
centuries ago a group of far seeing wise men, called (either
contemporaneously or subsequently) members of "The Invisible
Society", caused to be grafted on to the Guild and Fellowship of
Operative Masonry, a certain system of ethics and some principles
of cosmogony or theogony or whatever may be the proper word, such
imported teaching being either original or tradition, or collated,
but in any case forming a distinct system; that they founded a
school or association for the purpose of promulgating these
teachings, giving the broad lines of such association its rules,
government, and ceremonies to their immediate and most advanced
followers; that these Brethren subsequently elaborated the scheme,
which as time went on consolidated and developed into a numerous
and powerful organisation, which organisation is in fact
represented by the whole body of Freemasonry as we know it today.
So much is tolerably simple and gives us a purely human and
historical association, not differing much perhaps from a big
mutual-improvement society. But when we add to this conception that
the Founders of Speculative Freemasonry were Initiates, that the
society had an esoteric, as well as an exoteric aspect, are that in
this esoteric aspect the Master acknowledged by the Founders has
always occultly directed the Society in its progress and does so
still, then a perfect whirl of questions assails us. How can it be
proved? Did the first members of the Society think so? How comes it
that the mythology, the symbolism, the very name, and legend of the
Master Builder, are borrowed from every imaginable source,
Kabbalistic, Gnostic, Neo-Platonic, Buddhist, and Egyptian? If an
occult guidance be claimed for the Craft, whence all these
corruptions and abuses? and so on; there is no  end to such
questionings. It is no part of out purpose to answer such questions
categorically; it would be useless to attempt it, for a new flight
would emerge at once; but rather to indicate what is the true
conception of Freemasonry in such a manner as will demonstrate that
all these and similar questions are irrelevant, and proceed from
ignorance of the fundamental idea involved in the concept of the
Masonic Order. The keynote of the
lines we propose to take will be found in the Hermetic axiom, "As
above, so below". And by way of introduction to what follows in the
main part of the Paper, we should add that whether the student
takes the Gnostic view, or the pure Buddhistic, or any other great
Cosmogony which is available, it is clear that an inner, force or
spirits operating through or manifesting itself by means of the
matter which is perceptible by the senses, is the true construction
and meaning of the Universe. We may take the imperceptible force or
spirit to be anything we please for the time being, either the
final supreme "causa causans"; operating directly or by means of
intermediate Aeons, Dhyan Chohans, Elohim, Angels, Creative
Spirits, or what you will. Let us but admit that in some way or
other there is a substantial real which is the cause of the
apparent. As in the Macrocosm so in the microcosm; the Divine
spark, call it Spirit, call it if you like Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or by
any name you please, is manifest in, imprisoned in, or dwells in,
a material body, phenomenal and illusory if you will.  The body,
however, whether of the Cosmos or of the individual, is perceptible
to the bodily senses of other individuals; it has its limitations,
its hereditary qualities, its Karma, which do not affect the spirit
or Higher Principles, or Higher Self, save in so far as the latter
is bound to its prison house.  And because the same law by the
Hermetic axiom must pervade all things, every association must have
its inner spirit and its outward material form.  So the Masonic
Order has its inner guiding spirit, and the outward form which,
like the form of a man, was born at a definite time with the
limitations of heredity, with Karma, all tending to obstruct and
delay the union of the visible phenomenal body of Freemasonry with
the Substantial Spirit thereof, or what we may perhaps term the
finding of the Higher Self.  The relation of this Spirit to the
spirit of the Cosmos, by whatever name called, and also to the
Spirit which animated the human bodies of the Founders of the
Craft, we shall endeavour to show, with a view of indicating that
the teachings of our Order are utterly consonant with those of the
inspired seers of all ages. For the benefit of Brethren who are not
specially familiar with Oriental philosophies and modes of thought,
an appendix has been added to this Paper on the "Seven Principles
of Man" as understood by the Eastern schools, a conception which
has been largely used as an analogy.

1. THE MASONIC CRAFT: ASTRAL AND VISIBLE.

It will no doubt be of assistance to students, and also serve to
bring out clearly the position which the Masonic Order claims to
occupy, if fundamental theories are stated in the form of
propositions; such propositions being followed by explanatory and
illustrative notes.  Of course these propositions must not on any
account be taken as dogmatic statements, but merely as a convenient
way of explaining a somewhat difficult subject. Obviously the first
point is with regard to the nature of the Order, and our first
proposition therefore is:

1..The Masonic Order is in itself a distinct living entity or unit,
whose visible body is composed of multitudes of entities, each
having an individuality of its own, the whole Order, like the
living human being, having its seven Principles.

The first proof of this proposition is to be found in the existence
of the Masonic Order as an Association at the present day, for it
is fact that every association is to a greater or less extent an
individual entity apart from the members comprising it.  For
instance, a regiment of soldiers has its ideal personality, its
Linga Sharira (model-body, popularly called "astral body"), so to
speak, which survives from generation to generation, and has
definite character, memory, honour and disgrace. Further, the men
composing the regiment may be regarded as the Sthula Sharira
(physical body) of the regiment, while the "esprit de corps" which
holds them together corresponds to the Prana (life) of the
regiment.  Thus in every association the seven principles may be
traced, some being dormant or mere potentialities; and according to
the varying development of them, so are the associations analogous
to human, animal, vegetable, or mineral entities.

The fallacy opposed to this lies in confining the conception of a
living entity or unit to such bodies as have form and limitations
perceptible to human senses, as, for example, to men, animals,
vegetables etc. It is, howevers obvious that every cell of the
human body has in a certain sense an individuality of its own
(using the term in the popular sense), it lives, it functions, and
dies, according to its own laws of growth and development.  There
are also in the human body innumerable parasites and bacteria,
having nothing in common with its life save as guests it a house,
some of them being actively hostile to the common life.  Moreover,
multitudes of cells of foreign matter simply pass through, and are
never incorporated in the body; hence, to the perception of a cell
or a microscopic parasite the entire human being as an entity might
well seem a myth. Either then we must make the limit of the
perception of human senses our final limit, or conceive of an
association as a living entity; the latter is obviously "a priori"
the most philosophic.

Like the ordinarily understood living entity, the Masonic Order,
and indeed every other association, has both its material and its
astral body.  The astral body is the ideal form, the internal and
invisible Order, so to speak, and of course existing before the
visible and material form. This astral Order must be as old as
Humanity, and capable of existence apart from the visible Order,
and the counter proposition is that such invisible or astral Order
is the only true Order. Express reference is made in the Order
rituals to the existence of a Grand Lodge Above, having its Grand
Master and Officers.  Such reference is meant to testify to the
fact, which forms part of the long stream of esoteric tradition
throughout the ages, that a supernal Masonic Assembly not only
exists, but that it preceded, in point of time and constitution,
the Masonic Order on earth. Had it not so existed and preceded the
terrestrial Order, that Order itself would not have existed; for
the hypothesis is, as we have already stated, that the latter is
the shadow and projection upon the physical world of a
corresponding hierarchical order in the superphysical.

There is, then, an astral Masonic Order or inner community which
has been engaged from the earliest ages in building the grand
Temple for the regeneration of Humanity, by which the kingdom of
God will become manifest, as is proved by the testimony of occult
science of all ages. There is also a visible material association,
now existing, which we have suggested was considered by its
original Founders to be the material and visible body corresponding
to that astral Order. The Brethren of the 1717 Grand Lodge were the
custodians of the Craft legend, now known as the Hiramic myths and
it will be necessary to show or assume that this mystic Hiram ("our
Master Hiram Abiff") was the same as the Prototype of the ancient
mysteries. It will be necessary to return to this point, but for
the present, accepting the various Hermetic and Kabbalistic schools
as connecting links, we may assume it, although we add the
qualification that the view of the 1717 Brethren was more limited,
and that they knew less of the mystic side of these great teachings
than the famous schools who preceded them.

The relations between the visible and the invisible Masonic Order
are analogous to those between the material body and the astral
double of a human being.  This must needs follow as a corollary
from the propositions for every material unit must have its astral
form, and the relationship between the two is always the same.

The various human beings composing the Association called the Craft
are analogous to the various cells composing the human body, these
are heterogeneous and none of them exactly represent the whole.
There is an individuality (again using the term in the popular
sense) in every association which is more or less definite, but
which is not the individuality of any of its members or of the sum
of them, or the average of that sum; but a distinct entity.  That
this applies to the Craft is clear from the popular speech even of
the critics of Freemasonry, who declare, "Freemasonry teaches,
proclaims, instructs etc," and although usually there is no
authority for making such statements about Freemasonry, the
speakers instinctively recognise the Craft as a distinct entity.

Every philosophic truth is faced by an opposite error, which is
mostly a misapprehension. It may therefore conduce to a better
understanding of our first proposition if we place alongside of it
its counter-proposition, viz, "Freemasonry, like every association,
is nothing more than the aggregate of the individuals at any
particular time composing it, and can, therefore, have no character
or qualities of its own". This counter proposition represents one
form of ordinary thinking, and as the philosophic "pros" and "cons"
have been so thoroughly thrashed out in the arguments of the
Nominalists and the Realists there is no need for their repetition
here.

We may now predicate a few points which follow as natural
corollaries from the analogy of the body of Freemasonry to the
human body:-

1.. It ought to be sufficiently organic to express in material form
and human language its constitution, rules and teaching.
2.. As the material human body is subject to sickness and
imperfection of various parts, to old age, decay and death, and to
Karmic results in general, which do not touch the higher
principles, so it is in the Craft. Imperfection in the members is
not only to be expected, but is an absolute necessity.

3.. As a man often knows inwardly in his higher knowledge truths
which he is utterly unable to express in words or in any way to
communicate to his fellows unless they are able by their own
intuition to grasp his meaning, so the amount which any man or body
of men are able to gather of the doctrine of Freemasonry must by no
means be taken as the sum total of those doctrines, but some
allowance must be made for the limitations both of expression and
receptiveness incident to material bodies,

This brings us to the second and third of our propositions, viz:-

(2).. The visible body of the Craft, like the material human body,
had a material origin at a definite epoch of time. Its organic
constitution is hereditary and is for the purpose of acting as a
vehicle, or means of communication between the invisible soul and
other souls bound in material limitations.

(3).. This organism is the constitution designed by the first
Founders of the Masonic Order acting on the express or implied
directions of the inner community whose doctrines they desired to
perpetuate.

The demonstration of this follows directly from the analogy of an
association to the human body. The body of a child is derived from
its parents, and from them it inherits the organs whereby in mortal
life it communicates with its fellows, but the soul is not derived
from the parents. In like manner, if any man or body of men, desire
to perpetuate any idea, or to impress any idea on the world at
large, the first and most obvious method is to form a society
thoroughly impressed and impregnated with that idea. The second
method is to write a book, adopt a written book, or make a
compilation. The deficiency in the case of the first method is that
the society may wander from their original purposes while in the
second instance written words soon lose their meaning in the
absence of a living teacher to expound them. Hence, it follows that
the Society with written records presents an exact analogy to the
child stamped with the hereditary image of its parents, and the
living soul coming into that child, the body becomes its vehicle of
communication.

Adopting the conception of the Masonic Craft as a unit consisting
of an association of smaller units, held together by some common
tie, and with some common object of central will, informing and
controlling the association, it is evident that unless there is a
clear and unquestionable means whereby that will can be expressed,
the Order is a nonentity so far as the rest of the world is
concerned.  This brings us to the fourth proposition:-

(4)..The physical and visible Masonic Order, in common with every 
other Association, has, as the physical man has, organic means of
communicating its will, thoughts, and teaching.

This proposition is almost self-evident from a consideration of any
Association of which we know. For instance, the smallest club
begins by appointing a secretary to answer questions and to speak
in the name of the club, and then forms a more or less efficient
organisation by which the wishes of the members as a whole can be
ascertained.  Similarly, a limited Company has its board of
directors, its seal authenticating its utterances, and its official
appointed to speak and act in the name of the Company.  Even a
Nation has its House of Representatives or its Autocrat. In every
case until such an organisation is formed the Association has no
cognisable existence. The common consent of both friends and
critics assigns an organic voice to Freemasonry by speaking either
in praise or condemnation of what the Craft does, says, or teaches.

(5).. The organic means of communicating the thought, teaching or
decision of the whole Craft is by decree of a Grand Lodge, i.e., a
General Assembly lawful, approved and received by all subordinate
Lodges.

The Masonic movement began on St. John the Baptist's Day, 24th. 
June, 1717, in obscure circumstances, by four old London Lodges
resolving to generate out of themselves an over-riding fifth entity
designed to be the governing authority for themselves and a few
other Lodges in and around London and which became the first Grand
Lodge. From the very first it was considered that the whole Craft,
either personally or by representation, should deliberate on what
concerned the whole.  When Freemasons grew too numerous for all to
be present, they came by representation. In an association too
large for a consensus of all its members to be possible, the result
is attained by the principle of representation.  As there may be
imperfection in the representation, there may also be doubt about
the expression of will when first promulgated, but it is to be
presumed accurate, and its subsequent acceptance by the association
makes it the organic voice of that association and binding thereon. 
These conditions are all fulfilled in the decrees of a Masonic
Grand Lodge. The formation of the premier Grand Lodge in 1717 was
the seed-germ of the world-wide Craft of today.

The doctrines authoritatively promulgated by the Craft may be
reduced to a very small compass.  Since the great union between the
Ancient and Modern Grand Lodges in 1813: which resulted in the
formation of the United Grand Lodge of England, the organ (so to
speak) of the living Craft whose function was to enunciate
teachings in final, absolute and crystallised form, has become
temporarily inoperative, its potentiality however retaining.  The
office of the teaching Craft was thenceforth limited to the
authorizations, inculcation and application of truths already 
defined, or to the tentative and local promulgation of teaching 
hereafter perhaps to be generally received by the whole Craft.
Occultists will, of courses be familiar with the idea of a certain
amount of teaching being given out at a the from an  authoritative
source, and then the supply ceasing for a time, to be again renewed
at the proper season.  Materialist enquirers  must simply accept
the fact that the Craft by its constitution provided itself with an
organ of speech, and that having made sundry definite statements by
means thereof, it became silent, although the organ of speech was
not destroyed.

Surveying now the ground we have gone over, we see that the Craft
may be conceived of as an entity, apart from the individuals at any
particular time composing it, and bearing a strong analogy to the
human body, the men at any given time making up the association
called the Craft, corresponding to the molecules and cells
composing the body; having also its ideal or astral counterpart,
imperfectly expressed by the outward and visible Order; and having
further its common mind or thought faculty, and an organ whereby
the thoughts evolved by that faculty can be expressed and made
known. It thus appears that we have the means of knowing the
outward or exoteric Freemasonry, and that we can use such knowledge
to gain acquaintance with the esoteric Order; see how far the outer
is a true presentment of the inner, how far Karmic Law operates,
and other problems of deep interest.

II. THE LIFE PRINCIPLE OF FREEMASONRY

It has been significantly stated that every man has three distinct
personalities; the first the man as he is, the second the man he
believes himself to be, and the third the man as others see him. Of
these, the first can probably only be known to omniscience, but the
synthesis of the second and third will come as near to it as it is
possible for finite human intelligence to attain. Indeed, the man
himself can no more know the outward presentment of his personality
than others judging him can know (as he himself partially does
know) the spirit and reason of that presentment, and its real
meaning.  So, by strict analogy; it is with the Masonic Order;
outsiders who are not members of the Craft, may have a very full
knowledge of its outward aspects, but of the inward realities they
have no more knowledge than outsiders have of the true motives of
a man's actions. Just as it is valuable to a man to be told by a
friend how his conduct appears to others, but dangerous to judge a
man by appearance only; so the candid criticism of honest outsiders
is of the greatest value to the Craft, and to the seeker after
truth the account of our Masonic teaching and system as presented
by an outsider, when collated with the explanation thereof given
from within by the authoritative voice of the Order itself, affords
the best possible information of what Freemasonry really is.  The
writings of the modern Hermetic school are of great value in this
respect; honest enough to see clearly faults as well as virtues,
mystic enough to discern the spiritual side of Freemasonry, and
able to look dispassionately on the outward presentment, they can
know and describe the visible body of the Craft, into which the
voice of the living Craft can infuse a living soul.  We have used
the expression "the living Craft," and the question naturally
arises wherein does the life consist? Here again the analogy of the
human body will assist us, for science informs us that the life
principle of the body is resident in certain cells. In a cell-
colony, the life and the power of continuance of the species
resides in the germ-plastic cells, these are surrounded and over-
laid by enormous numbers of somatic cells which are mortal, which
come and go in the processes of metabolism, not the life of the
colony, yet necessary to its life. And these germ-plastic cells are
not homogeneous, but themselves undergo molecular changes whereby
they become each, as it were, the microcosm of the whole colony, so
that each germ-plastic cell has a potentiality of reproducing the
entire colony. On this molecular differentiation seems to depend
the law of heredity, and the most reasonable conclusion appears to
be that the germ-plastic of reproductive cell is a vehicle subject
to continuous chance and differentiation, but carrying the subtle
order or life principle, and capable of imparting it. That life
principle must have been originally infused into the cell from some
universal life or over-soul, or whatever name it may be called by. 
The vehicle, however; of the germ cell being the microcosm of the
cell colony, is itself imperfect and limited, and to this extent to
be distinguished from the vital principle it carries, which, being
drawn from universal life, is not subject to these imperfections. 
The Craft, as we have seen, growing together with a common life
like a cell colony, arranged its own constitution and conditions,
therefore, although outsiders may perceive that there is a life
principle somewhere, it is only from within that the nature of that
life can be stated, or the precise conditions of it.  Taking the
analogy of members of the Craft to molecules of the human body, we
should expect to find that life dependent on certain members and
passed from one to another of them, a life moreover originally
infused from without.  This accordingly brings us to the next
proposition:-

(6).. The corporate life of the Masonic Order resides in the rank
or degree of Master transmitted by appointed means from the Grand
Officers of the premier Grand Lodge, into whom the essential spirit
of the Order was originally infused.

At one time, before the first Grand Lodge of 1717, there  existed
among the Speculatives a special rank or degree of Master or
Installed Master, one of great exclusiveness and reserved for
Brethren who were experts in esoteric, philosophical, and occult
matters.  At the formation of our present system this Degree was
not taken over; it probably was very little a degree in the sense
of being a formulated ritual, but consisted rather of teaching
transmitted orally.  In any case, it seems to have been treated as
displaced or superseded by the introduction of our present Third
Degree, the Constitutions of 1723 enacting that our system should
henceforth consist only of our present three Craft degrees plus the
H.R. Arch; but, as to Installation, they provided that after a
Master Elect of a Lodge has submitted to the ancient charges "as
Masters have done in all ages". the Grand Master (or a deputy)
shall "according to certain significant ceremonies and ancient
usages" install him. This shows that "certain significant
ceremonies", brought forward from antiquity, were meant to be
perpetuated for the future. Thus the theory of our Order regarding
its own life is, and always has been, that it is dependent on and
resides in, and is transmitted by, its Installed Masters; in other
words, the Masonic equivalent of "the doctrine of the Apostolic
Succession".  Be it carefully understood that up to now there is
nothing as to supernatural grace or personal revelation, or moral
goodness. We are dealing simply with the human side of a human
organisation which has prescribed its objects and constitution, its
mode of communication with human beings, and the ceremonial means
whereby its common life is to be carried on.  All these elements we
may observe in more or less detail in every living association; in
fact we are now looking at the four lower principles of the
Association known as the Masonic Order.

To follow out the analogy, the general mass of members of the Craft
are its Sthula Sharira (physical body), chaotic if regarded as an
unorganised mass, but differentiated from the first
into somatic and germ-plastic cells, the latter being represented
by Installed Master; through these germ-cells the Prana, called
Life in the case of a human beings, Divine Wisdom in the case of
the Craft, is conveyed more or less vigorously and efficaciously to
the whole organism.

The counter-proposition to Proposition 6 is that what is 
known as Apostolic succession conveys no spiritual vitality, that
the inspiration or inward persuasion or intuitive sense which
prompts a man to be teacher is the sole effectual warrant, and that
any ceremony of ordination is merely the sign that a particular
body of people for the time being accept one of their number as
their leader, just as they might accept a member of Parliament. The
answer to this counter-proposition is that it is true of the astral
Craft alluded to in the Introduction to this Paper. The personal
inspiration of, and revelation given to, prophets, seers and
initiated, was, before the formation of the visible Craft, their
warrant for teaching.  That such personal inspiration, altogether
unconnected with ordination and the rank of Installed Mastery, may
still exist, is nowhere denied by the Craft - indeed, in our
Instruction Lectures it is positively asserted to exist (see First
Section, First Lecture, "To seek for a and Master from him to gain
instruction"). The Masonic Order, however, as previously shown, was
to be a "visible" Order, i.e., the already existing astral form was
to assume a material and objective existence. In the process of
this formation the material process of carrying on the life of that
material body was formulated. Thus, to recur to the human analogy,
the life (if we may call it so) of an astral form, may be
independent of the mechanism of germ-plastic cells; but so soon as
the subjective form becomes objective or material, such mechanism
or vehicle for the life principle becomes necessary. The important
point to note is that the originators of the Craft, intending a
distinctly visible, tangible and material body, provided that its
life principle should be clearly recognised, and the presence or
absence thereof provable by ordinary historic methods and the rules
of evidence.
 
The operation of the law of Karma on the lower principles of the
Craft will be treated, in the next section of our Paper.

III. THE KARMA OF THE CRAFT.

To some minds it may seem as though the analogy of the Craft to the
material body is somewhat strained and fantastic, and is, moreover,
unscientific.  The following references to modern scientific works
where the analogy is insisted on from the opposite side, viz. of a
material body to a commodity, may therefore be useful:-

...What is the organism? A community of living cells, a little
state, well provided with all the appurtenances of upper and under
officials, servants and masters, great and small."

(Maudsley, "Physiology of Mind").

"There is evidence that the semi-independent cells which go to make
up a complex organism are not destitute of intelligence.  A complex
organism may be said to be a community of cells."

(Syme on "The Modification of Organisms").
 
It all be useful now to see what species of body it was that the
early Freemasons took is the analogy to the visible Craft, and as
to this they leave no doubt whatever. It was the body of Hiram, as
described in the Order rituals.  Here observe that no question of
the historic truth of the Craft central legend is involved; that
belongs to a totally different part of the argument.  All we need
now is (1) The Craft, being an association which had provided
itself with definite machinery for ascertaining and declaring its
will and thought, deliberately designed and adapted certain myths
as its canon of teaching. (2) The principal myth of the Craft
system is that of the death And burial of Hiram Abiff narrated in
the traditional history. (3) According to this narrative the
visible body of the alleged Master Builder passed through certain
adventures, and had certain characteristics. (4) This body is taken
as typical of, or analogous to, the body composed of individual
members united in an association.  Though
it be said that the whole narrative is an allegory, this part of
the argument is untouched. In that body so described lay what the
association chose to adopt as the microcosmic type of its own life,
and such, therefore, must be considered to be the Craft's thought
of itself. Now, one great and prime characteristic of the body so
described was suffering, and the suffering of a physical body means
disunion and disharmony of its molecules, whether arising from some
of them being only imperfectly governed by or in active opposition
to the central will or from the presence of some foreign body
either passively or actively hostile to the common life.

(7)..Pain and suffering in the human body correspond to disunion in
the Craft, and are the result of Karmic laws.

This follows from the correspondence of individual human beings to
the molecules of an organic body.  In the healthy human being every
molecule is permeated by the corporate life, and consequently
perfectly fulfils its function. But directly any molecule is cut
off wholly or partially from these life-currents and becomes
separate, its semi-independent condition becomes a wholly
independent condition, with the self strongly accentuated, and it
is consequently a foreign body.  Immediately, by the laws of its
being, there is a great effort to cast out the foreign body and
because more or less of the tissues become involved in the
struggle, inflammation and suffering result.  All the pathology of
disease may practically be reduced to the presence in the organism
of molecules which do not obey the central will, and this disease
and suffering is in strict accordance with Karmic laws. If, then,
nations and associations have their Karma as well as human
individualities, the presence in an association of members whose
conduct, ideas, etc., are out of accord with the spirit of the
association and its purposes, whether these be actually foreign
bodies (so to speak) or members from whom the spirit has departed,
the result is the same, disease and suffering proceeding from
Karmic laws, though we may be unable to see where the Karma was
generated. So the spirit that has from the first animated the
Craft, finds as St. Paul found "a law in its members warring
against the law of the Spirit." The Spirit of the Craft has to be
"made perfect by suffering", and that suffering is the presence of
molecules (members) mechanically part of its organism but not
polarised to the vital currents. The cure in the human body is the
strengthening of the life principle, until it dominates and
subjugates every molecule to the good of the whole body. The cure
in the case of the Association is similar by promoting brotherhood
and unity, by subjecting every individual to the life currents
animating the Association, by checking us from self-assertiveness,
from vainglorious striving after power, in a word by killing the
self. In the reality perfect Order every member bows to the
authority of the Order and seeks no power or honour for himself
apart from his brethren.

We have seen that, as with a living body, so with an Association,
the spirit of life-monad manifests itself in and through material
particles, or cells or human units, gathered from and partaking the
character of its environment, and that the greater or loss
adaptability of the visible body to the needs and impulses of the
monad depends on the law of Karma. The two Aspects of this law must
also be kept in view, the Karma to which the monad is subject on
entering its material body (in the case of a human being that which
was earned in a prior incarnation), and that which it generates and
reaps in the continuance of its present material existence. It
would be rash to attempt to trace the prior history of the
animating spirits of Associations - it is enough to assume that
somehow or other they come under the some Karmic law as human
beings, and have not necessarily earned in their present
incarnation (if we may use the word) all the results they reap. If
the law of Karma be true at all it must be true, exactly in so far
as applicable, to every independent or semi-independent existence,
to the cell therefore, as much as to the body which is built up of
cells, and to the Association composed of human beings as much as
to the several human beings composing it. This, which seems
elementary, leads irresistibly to the next proposition.

(8).. Provincial Grand Lodges and all Private Lodges have a
semi-independent existence, as Associations within the parent
Association, like the organs of the human body; their organisation
or government corresponding to the nerve-ganglia governing the
human organs, and like these semi-independent, capable of
sustaining life; but not of initiating action in regard to the
parent Association.

This proposition with regard to Associations is the necessary
corollary of what has gone before.  Every Association, however
small has a separate existence "qua" Association, and a certain
modified autonomy to the extent of regulating its own affairs as
such Association.  Each Association is, however, a part of some
greater Association, a race or nation it may be, and finally a part
of humanity itself, to whose general laws its own autonomy is
necessarily subject, and hence it is only semi-independent. In the
living human body the nerve-ganglia governing different organs are
to a considerable extent automatic, that is to say they act without
the conscious interference of the central will, though not in
opposition thereto, and they sometimes react, by a reflex action,
to external stimuli, without conveying the impression of that
stimulus to the central consciousness, yet the central
consciousness and the central will can generally, to some extent at
least, know and control their action.  Thus these ganglia are semi-
independent and the correspondence is practically complete.  The
analogy holds for every association. Thus the business of a State
is carried on by Departments, each of which is semi-independent, to
the extent that in the healthy normal state it does its own work
without troubling the central authority, but the object of that
work is the good of the whole State.  Suppose what is called
corruption to be present in any department, this means that the
heads of that department and possibly all connected with it, are
using for selfish ends and for their own benefit the powers
entrusted to them for the general good of the State. This is
separateness, and in time produces a feeling of discomfort so
widespread that the central will is compelled to strive to cast it
out. The period longer or shorter before the central will comes
into operation depends on the strength, vitality, and health of the
Association or State. What is termed mortification (or really
corruption) of a part of the human body is precisely analogous to
this.  Corruption of the body politic is a most apposite term. In
the Craft, looked upon as an Association, there are Departments,
Subsections and Branches, each organised and therefore
semi-independent.  By the original constitution every private Lodge
was such a Subsection, and looking for the moment upon these Lodges
as units, we get a conception of the Craft as a homogeneous
multicellular organisation.  In the process of development, as we
have already shown, the central authority was lodged in the Grand
Lodge whereat all Masters and Wardens represented their own Lodges.
Within the Lodges the organisation, as we have demonstrated,
constituted in itself an association. And thus the whole Craft in
its normal and healthy state forms an association consisting of
semi-independent organic associations with one central will,
consciousness, and power of expression (or living voice); each of
the constituent associations (Lodges) being in its turn composed of
human beings (like semi-independent cells) organised by the
division of labour into various departments fulfilling various
functions.  As the constituent elements of the Craft are drawn from
its environment, so are the constituent elements of the Lodges
which form the Craft, and as these are local and racial in their
constitution, their elements necessarily vary, and thus
differentiation in the character of the Lodge's themselves will
necessarily result, and this differentiation may be the source of
disunion, which has been shown to depend on Karmic laws. In
considering the character of a friend, we recognise at once that to
blame him for a hasty word uttered in pain or sickness as though it
were a deliberate opinion, would be unjust. Far more so to blame
him for unavoidable weakness, illness, or deformity.  We know (or
we feel intuitively) that this all belongs to the lower principles,
in fact to the house our friend, by his Karma, is compelled to live
in, not to himself.  In speaking of the Craft, justice requires
that the same distinction should be kept in view, and therefore in
the second part of this Paper we propose to trace somewhat further
the analogy in the Craft to the Seven Principles of man, with a
view of working out the more esoteric side of the subject.

As a fitting conclusion to the first half of our Paper, let us
apply to the Craft the further analogy of an acorn - a small and
exteriorly unimpressive object, which nevertheless enshrines the
life-force of the great oak that cast it, and which contains
energies capable of expanding into another tree greater than its
parent.  So with Freemasonry. It is the humble off-spring of the
great Mystery systems that once were the only means whereby Divine
Wisdom was revealed to men in this world; and it enshrines, in
compressed and simple form, the essential immutable principles of
their teaching.  The time has now come when those severely
compressed principles can be released, interpreted, and given an
infinitely wider field of usefulness than was possible in
antiquity. Which field our world-wide Order provides, for it is an
organism that is being gradually evolved, a "body prepared," for
the dissemination on a wide scale of philosophic secrets and
mysteries which, in earlier states of society, could only be
imparted to the initiated few, but which can now be comparatively
broadcast.  In this Study Circle we aim at helping on that
movement, at releasing and revealing what lies compressed and
concealed within our system.


THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN BUT SHALL BE REVEALED"

(To be continued)