"FREEMASONRY AND THE DOCTRINE OF REINCARNATION"

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.  Behold I shew you a
mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment ....
for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on
immortality .... then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory." - 1 Corinthians, XV, 50-4.

It is a somewhat saddening reflection that in spite of the presumable
millions of years of human life on this planet, there is no general belief as
to whence we come and whither we go, or indeed as to why there is any
coming or going at all. The meaning and purpose of life are still beyond the
scope of physical science; they are matters of faith at best and not
infrequently of despair.  The pain of the world, the transparent ruthlessness
of Nature, the amazing inequalities of human existence, the seeming grave
injustices in the lives of the majority, are, as far as our reason goes, as
great enigmas to us today in the twentieth century as they have ever been
so long as we have any trace of human history.  In such a state of affairs
we cannot afford to cast aside without hearing any theory that attempts
seriously to throw light on the darkness.

The general hypothesis of pre-existence (under which the special doctrine
of reincarnation falls) does not, it is true, solve the fundamental problems
but it pushes back some of the initial difficulties.  It furnishes an ampler
ground for the development of the individual than the cribbed, cabined, and
confined area of one short earth-life, and by providing a stage or series of
stages for the acts and scenes of the age-long drama of the man-soul prior
to the present existence, permits us to entertain the notion of a law of moral
causation conditioning our present relation to circumstances in a way that
does not clash with our innate sense of justice.
 
As a fact susceptible of scientific demonstration reincarnation is incapable
either of proof or disproof.  Such evidence of it as exists is but
circumstantial and tending to a probability.  However, if we care to accept
- what it is imprudent to ignore - the authority of the past, we find the
Scriptures and traditions of Oriental races with a great spiritual and
philosophic record emphatic in their inculcation of the doctrine. So, too, are
the Pythagorean and Platonist systems.  Outside the Greek philosophical
and mystical schools the European mind has been unacquainted with the
dogma, but nothing hangs upon the ignorance of it by the peoples of a
continent whose civilisation is of quite recent growth and whose populace
was barbarian long after Egypt and the Far and Middle East had declined
from their high positions as centres of religious and philosophic wisdom. 
The history of civilised Europe synchronises virtually with that of the
Christian Church, which has held (or withheld) the keys of information upon
arcane matters, and since that Church was silent upon reincarnation, no
means existed by which the idea could be propagated in the West until it
became introduced by the "Theosophical" movement towards the close of
the nineteenth century.  Its acceptance was then facilitated by two causes;
first, by the translation and popularisation among us of the sacred and
philosophic literature of the East, where the doctrine is universal; and
secondly, by the recognition by Western science of an evolutionary process
at work in Nature, a process suggesting that all life advances by gradations
and through a succession of ascending morphological changes. The mind
can hardly be otherwise than gratified at observing a gradual perfecting
process involving a sequence of births and deaths, and at contemplating
life sleeping in the mineral, dreaming in the plant, waking in the animal,
attaining self-consciousness and freedom of action in man, with the added
prospect of further spiritualisation and advancement as time goes on. What
the mystical mind of the East has intuitively discerned and ever held as
true, the practical intellect of the West has at last hit upon by scientific
inductive research, the results of which suggest that all life advances to
more and more perfect consciousness, by slow patient gradation and
through countless modes and forms.  That one of the most powerful
arguments in favour of preexistence and reincarnation is furnished by our
general conception of Divine Creative Power, and by the analogy between
psychological and biological evolution. If higher biological types have
appeared successively and not simultaneously with the lower species - if
God, refraining from supernatural intervention, derives the species from
each other in a natural succession, then it seems also likely that higher
psychological types within the same biological species should not be
suddenly created, but produced as the result of a natural development of
lower types. The true conception of Divine Creative Power, such as we
know it from biology, leads to the conclusion that what strikes us as genius
or sanctity must have been prepared by conscious endeavours of a free
human will, and not suddenly created by God without any connection with
the general evolution of spiritual life.  Indeed, such a sudden creation of
higher types who have done nothing to deserve that higher level would be
unfair towards those who rise slowly to higher levels by conscious
endeavour and effort.  Why should others surpass us immediately from the
beginning without having done anything to attain the goal of our own
aspirations? Though every striving spirit knows the wonderful action of
Divine grace within, even this experience shows us God as acting upon a
living soul, lifting that already existing soul to higher levels, and not as
suddenly introducing into human life angelic perfection without
spontaneous effort or previous experience.  We know this working of our
Creator in us always as an addition to something that depends upon our
own free will, and this is at least one meaning of the Gospel saying: "To
him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance". God acts
according to His general laws, which man is able to discover and to apply. 
These laws do not limit Divine omnipotence; they are only a reflection of
that omnipotence in human minds. To perceive a Divine law is simply to
give human expression (according to the capacities of human intelligence)
to a Divine reality which in God has not the shape of any human formula.
With that restriction we may treat clearly conceived formulas as laws of
existence and of life, and as there is a law of gravity which explains the fall
of a stone, and a law of movement which explains the flight of a bird - so
we gather from experience an equally universal law of the spirit, according
to which within our earthly experience higher stages of intellectual or moral
power are attained by effort, training, renunciation, and voluntary
mortification.  The mere existence of a higher stage implies, therefore,
preceding efforts, and if in our actual life there has been no room for them,
we are justified in admitting that the necessary efforts were made in the
forgotten past of each higher spirit, and, in the case of human spirits, they
could have been made only in past human incarnations, implying, as they
do, a knowledge and an experience of human conditions which could be
acquired in that way alone.  The efforts of each individual spirit are
supported by Divine grace, but only those who have attained something by
themselves can expect Divine help to achieve more beyond their own
deserving.  The analogy between the evolution of organisms and the
growth of a soul shows the necessity of many human incarnations for each
individual spirit, so that the greatness manifested in a brief lifetime may be
considered as having developed in the course of numerous preceding
lifetimes.

Now evolution, although today freely admitted to be a universal process in
Nature, is still generally supposed to be a modern discovery. This view
however, is incorrect because the Ancient Wisdom, which forms the
philosophical background of our modern Freemasonry, knew and acted
upon it ages before scientists accepted the theory in the nineteenth
century.  The Ancient Wisdom teaching recognised that in all the Universe
there is but One Life broken up and differentiated into innumerable forms,
and evolving through these forms from less to greater degrees of
perfection. In Masonic metaphor, Nature was seen to be the vast general
quarry and forest out of which individual lives have been hewn like so many
stones and timber, which when duly perfected are destined to be fitted
together and built into a new and higher synthesis, a majestic Temple
worthy of the Divine indwelling, and of which the Temple of Solomon was
a type.  The Ancient Wisdom affirmed that all life has issued from out of the
"East" (the Great World of infinite Spirit), and has journeyed to the "West"
(the Little World of finite form and embodiment), whence, when finally
perfected by experience in restricted conditions, it is ordained to return to
the "East".  Life, then, was seen to be broken up and distributed into
innumerable individualised lives or souls, and to be passing from one
bodily form to another in a perpetual progression. These individualised
souls were called "stones", and all down the stream of history is to be found
this similitude of the human soul to a stone, together with directions for
working it from a crude to a perfect state. Expressed in the language of
modern Freemasonry, the lineal descendant of the Ancient Wisdom, these
"stones" are designated "rough ashlars" or "perfect ashlars", accordingly as
they exist in the rough or have been squared, worked upon, and polished.
The bodily form with which the soul becomes invested upon entering this
world, was seen to be transient, variable, perishable, and of small moment
when compared with the life or soul animating it; yet it has regarded as
being of the greatest importance in another way, since it provided a fulcrum
or point of resistance for the soul's education and development. For this
reason it was known as, and in Freemasonry we still term it so, "the tomb
of transgression"; the "grave" into which the soul has descended for the
purpose of working out its own salvation, for transforming and improving
itself, and out of which it ascends the stronger and wiser for the experience.
To enable us to grasp clearly the Ancient Wisdom teaching, it is essential
to bear in mind the distinction which is made between the individuality and
the personality, between life and form, spirit and body. The Secret Doctrine
presupposes that man is a spiritual Being or Ego, with the triple powers of
WILL, WISDOM and CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE, and that he enters into
relationship with matter in order to shape for himself a succession of bodies
which constitute his successive personalities, and by means of which he
gains the experiences that are essential for mental, moral and spiritual
growth, until gradually his real nature shines out in all its Wisdom, Strength
and Beauty. Accordingly, the personality is deemed to include the soul (as
this is understood in our modern terminology) as well as the body, or,
stated alternatively; the personality embraces expression as well as the
form. The soul, then, being the reflection of the three-fold nature of the
Spirit necessarily has also three attributes (modes of expression), and these
are the familiar thoughts, feelings and actions of the human personal
consciousness. Hence, the soul requires, for the full expression of its triple
nature, three bodies or vehicles:-

1..MENTAL BODY - vehicle for thought.
2..EMOTIONAL BODY - vehicle for sensation and emotion.
3..PHYSICAL BODY - vehicle for action.

Finally, the Ancient Wisdom proclaims that the "centre" of Being is the
Spiritual Intelligence, which is the Higher or real Self of man, and the
doctrine teaches that if man would find that Self, he must learn how to
retreat inwards beyond the soul consciousness.

An important part of the curriculum of the Ancient Mysteries was instruction
in Cosmology, or the science of the Universe, and the intention of this
instruction was to disclose to Candidates the physical and the metaphysical
constitution of the world, together with the place and destiny of man in it.
By this means Candidates learned of the continual flux of matter, of the
transiency of bodily forms, and of the abiding permanence of the One Lift
or Spirit which has descended and embodied itself in matter.  There was
also demonstrated to them the dual cosmic method of Involution and
Evolution, by which the universally diffused Life-force involves and
circumscribes itself within material limitations and physical conditions, and
thence evolves and arises out of them, enriched by the experience.  They
were further given instruction concerning the different levels and
graduations of the Universe, some of them material and some ethereal, the
planes and sub-planes, upon which the great scheme is being carried out;
which levels and planes, all progressively linked together, constitute one
vast ladder of many rounds, staves, or rungs, a veritable "Ladder of Life". 
Candidates thus came to understand that the Universe consists of
embodied consciousness, and that these embodied consciousness exist
in a practically infinite gradation of varying degrees of perfection - a 
real "Ladder of Life" or "Stair of Life", stretching endlessly in either direction,
for our imagination can conceive no limits except a hierarchical one; and
such hierarchical limitation is but spacial, and not actual, qualitative and
formal.  They were shown that the "Ladder of Life" is marked at certain
intervals by landing places, so to speak, which the Mysteries called "planes
of being" (different spheres of consciousness, to express the idea in
alternative terms).  Candidates in the old systems were given instruction in
these matters before being admitted to. Initiation, and the knowledge
gained served to explain to them their own nature and constitution, and
their place in the World-system.  Today, Freemasonry, perpetuating the
ancient teaching, exhibits to the Brethren a simple ladder, a symbol which
when properly interpreted is calculated to open widely the eyes of their
imagination. It is true that the ladder portrayed on the T.B. of the First
Degree is given a moral significance in the Instruction lecture, but, as
students of Hebrew mysticism are well aware, "Jacob's Ladder" is also a
symbol of the Universe with its succession of step-like planes reaching from
the heights to the depths. Indeed, we learn from the V. of the S.L., that the
Fathers House has many mansions, many levels and resting places for His
creatures in their different conditions and degrees of progress; and it is
these levels, these planes and sub-planes, that are denoted by the rungs
and staves of the symbolic ladder. Of these planes there are, for us in our
present state of evolutionary unfoldment, three principal ones: -

1 .. PHYSICAL PLANE
2 .. PLANE OF DESIRE AND EMOTION 
3 .. MENTAL PLANE.

These three levels of the world are reproduced in man; the first (physical
plane) corresponds with his material physique, his sense-body; the second
(plane of desire and emotion) with his desire and emotional nature; and the
third (mental plane), with his mentality, which forms the link between his
physical nature and his spiritual being. The Universe and man himself are
therefore constructed ladder-wiser and the ladder with 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 the septenary physiological changes in our
bodily organism, and in the similar periodicities known to physics and every
branch of science.  The Ancient Wisdom teaches that the one universal
substance composing the differentiated parts the Universe "descends" from
a state of the utmost etheriality, by successive steps of increasing
densification, until gross materialisation 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. In
like manner, we ourselves, have each descended into this world (the nadir
of materiality), and we have each to ascend from it by the same steps of 
"Jacob's Ladder", "which reaches to the heavens" (the zenith - "an etheral
mansion veiled from mortal eyes by the stary firmament"). In some Masonic
diagrams and Tracing Boards there is exhibited upon the ladder 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, ln the
words of the poem:-

"Rise by stepping-stones
From their dead selves to higher things". 

Indeed, each of us carries his own cross (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. Nevertheless, 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 and the separate rungs of the ladder
constitute a unity, so all life and all lives are fundamentally one, and none
lives to himself alone.  Masonic students who recognise that every
reference in Speculative Freemasonry is figurative and carries a symbolic
significance behind the literal sense of the words, will dismiss from their
minds any suggestion that the allusion to the familiar biblical episode in the
Fourth Section of the First Lecture (see Genesis, Chapter 28), was intended
by the compilers of our system to indicate a subject capable only of a
moral interpretation. We may be well assured that the Founders of our
Order had a much deeper purpose in view than that of merely reminding
us of the Pauline triad of theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity),
excellent as these may be.  Admittedly, the moral interpretation is both
warranted and salutary, but none the less it is far from being exhaustive,
while it also conceals rather than reveals the meaning of the Scriptural
reference and what the symbol of the Ladder is meant to convey to
discerning minds. Now, if we would correctly interpret the Scriptural
account of "Jacob's Ladder" as given in the Instruction-lecture, we must of
necessity have recourse to an ancient Hebrew mystical doctrine with which
Freemasonry is closely allied - the KABBALAH.  The Kabbalah accords a
prominent place to what are called the seven kings of EDOM, and the
student will find that these kings are represented in the Book of Genesis as
seven ancient royalties preceding the establishment of the Kingdom of
Israel; but the Kabbalah further explains that they are descriptive images of
seven worlds created prior to that inhabited by man, worlds which are
incapable of permanent endurance as the Divine Image is not assumed in
them. The humanity which assumes the Divine Image (i.e. man perfected)
is termed Israel, and the seven kings or kingdoms of Edom are shown to
be seven stations or planetary worlds through which the soul must pass in
order to attain perfection. Such a state of perfection is attained only when
by the full restoration and exaltation of the soul to oneness with the Spirit,
the masculine and feminine principles are in perfect balance with each
other. These principles (masculine and feminine) are called the King and
Queen, and are respectively the Archetypal Idea (Adam Kadmon), who
subsists prior to creation, and this Idea realised in creation.  And, as
declared in the Kabbalistic "Book of Occultations":

"Until the balance is established, and while yet the King and Queen look
not face to face upon each other, the seven worlds of Edom have no
continuance.  But when the Queen appears upon her throne, then all the
seven kingdoms of Edom shall be resumed in Israel and re-born under
other names, For all that is not, all that is, and that shall be; are borne on
the balance of the King and Queen looking face to face upon each other."

A careful perusal of this passage from the "Book of Occultations" discloses
that the condition signified is precisely that also described by St. Paul in his
Epistle to the Corinthians, when he says "But when that which is perfect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away; for now we see
through a glass darkly, but then face to face.". (1, Corinthians, 13, 10 - 12).
It is, then, apparent that the kings of Edom (i.e. Adam or earth), are an
occult figure of the seven progressive dominions, spheres, planets or
stages, through which the soul passes on the way to the heavenly royalty
within and beyond the earthly plane, to where man perfected becomes "a
Prince and Ruler in Israel".  Hence, the evanescence of the seven kingdoms
of Edom; they represent rudimentary and embryonic stages in the "making"
(perfecting) of man.  Hence also the Apocalyptic declaration: "And the
seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his
Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever", (Revelation, 11, 15).  Further,
it is important, to enable the student to comprehend the meaning of the
cryptic reference to Esau in the Instruction-lecture, to keep in mind that the
V. of the S.L., informs us that, "Essau is Edom, and the father of the kings 
thereof" (Genesis, chapter 36).  Now, Esau is the brother of Jacob, and as
it is the dynasty of Jacob which succeeds that of Edom, it follows that Esau
is a figure of corporeal nature, while Jacob is a figure of spiritual life.  Here
is the link with our symbol of "Jacob's Ladder", for we can discern that the
seven staves of the ladder are also the seven temporary kingdoms of Esau,
whose dominion Jacob is destined, by surmounting the ladder, to supplant
and supersede; doing this, and attaining the summit (the place of the Lord),
Jacob becomes ISRAEL, or "Prince with God".  Attention is particularly
directed to Genesis, 28, verse 12: "And he dreamed, and behold a ladder
set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the
angels of God ascending and descending on it." Interpreting this passage,
the Kabbalah explains that the angels on the Ladder denote souls
descending into incarnation, to the lowest degree of the Universe (matter
at its nethermost point), and ascending again into Heaven.  At the foot of
the Ladder at hight Jacob (the pilgrim soul) lies asleep, having for pillow a
stone, and as the material world is the place of the greatest darkness and
division from God, the place of the vision is called Luz.(or Luza), signifying
"separation".  Nevertheless, the soul knows that the nethermost point is also
the turning-point of the pilgrimage, and that hence forth the journey is
upwards and "eastwards".  This is the stage in which the soul perceives that
even in the lowest abyss of matter there is no real separation from the
Divine presence and life; and that in the very Valley of the Shadow of
Death, the "Rod and Staff" (i.e. the Trees of Life and of Knowledge -
symbolised in the Craft by the Square, a variant of the Cross) comfort it -
see Psalm 23, verse 4, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy
staff comfort me".  Hence, the exclamation of Jacob on awaking, "Surely
the Lord is in this place; and I know it not," (Genesis 28, 16), and the
consequent re-naming of the place, BETH-EL (i.e. House of God) - verse
18.  The Kabbalistic version of Jacob's dream is the Hebrew expression of
the Secret Doctrine upon which, from the beginning, all the great religions
of East and West have been built, namely the doctrine of the "Gilgal
Neschamoth", or the transmigration and progression of souls.

In many of the Ancient Mystery systems a Ladder, having seven steps or
gates, was used in order to demonstrate the seven stages of the soul's
progress through the world of materiality.  The Greek Mysteries, for
instance, represented existence by the river Styx, the "daughter" of Oceanus
(water of eternity), and by some called "mother" of Persephone (the soul),
as the vehicle whereby she is borne down into the under-world and carried
from mansion to mansion of the dark abodes.  Seven circuits are made by
the Styx, each of which includes and forms a world or station. During these
rounds of planetary evolution, Styx becomes the mother of four Children,
who denote respectively the four divisions of man's nature the emotional,
the volitional, the intellectual, and the-psychic. These children have for
father the giant Pallas (elemental force), for her victory over whom the
goddess Athene was called Pallas (i.e. Pallas Athone).  The word Styx
means literally "hateful", and signifies the imperfect nature of existence as
compared with pure being; this "River of Existence" is also variously called
the "Astral Fluid", the "Serpent", and "Lucifer".  The seven stages of
existence constitute what is known as a planetary chain, the term
"planetary" denoting "wandering" (i.e. pilgrimage), and they are classified as
follow:-

1.. ETHEREAL. 
2.. ELEMENTAL
3.. GASEOUS.
4.. MINERAL.
5.. VEGETABLE.
6.. ANIMAL
7.. HUMAN

It must be borne in mind that those stages are not localities, but conditions,
and that in the soul's passage none is left behind, all are taken up into
man, one being put on (as it were) after another, and the whole being
comprised in the perfected individual. Each of the seven stages has a part
in the evolution of the consciousness, which, it should be noted is single
until the lowest stage (the mineral) is reached; the mineral stage is the
"nethermost" point and lies at the foot of the "Ladder of Life". Here occurs
the "deep sleep" of Adam (as also of Jacob), the consciousness single and
not involving self-consciousness, having in this the grossest mode of matter
attained its minimum. From this point there commences the process of
re-duplication, or reflection of the consciousness, by means of which the
soul gradually passes into the consciousness of Self and of God.  The
consciousness being single until the fourth or lowest stage of existence is
reached (the world of mineral nature), the commencement of reduplication
takes place in the fifth station (the world of vegetable nature), and it is at
this stage that the soul becomes gathered up and formulated into a distant
individuality.  In the sixth station the capacity for "sin" originates through the
awakening of a sympathetic consciousness; at this stage, "sin" first
becomes possible, because so long as the individual has only the simple
consciousness of rudimentary nature, he knows no will but the Divine Will
expressed in natural law, and there is for him no better or worse - all is
"good". Stated in alternative terms: Adam while yet alone, cannot be
tempted, cannot sin, for mere mind cannot sin; only the soul can win. It is
by the advent or manifestation of "EVE" (the soul, "the woman") that there
comes the "knowledge of good and evil"; and it is to her, not Adam, that
the tempter, when at length he makes his appearance, addresses his
beguilements.  The "sin" of Eve is not in the eating of "the fruit of the tree"
herself, but in the giving of it to Adam (see Genesis 3, 12), since this
constitutes a retrogression on the path of evolution, in that it refers the
polaric point (i.e. the One Life which is centred in the soul), backward and
downward to the lower reason; for "sin" consists in a voluntary retrogression
from the higher to the lower. The "serpent" which tempts to "sin" is the
astral or magnetia self, which, recognising matter only, mistakes the illusory
for the substantial. Yielding to the "tempter", the soul falls under the power
of the lower nature ("Adam") see Genesis 4, 16 - "and thy desire shall be to
thy husband, and he shall rule over thee"; like Lot's wife she (Eve; - the
soul) has looked back, and forthwith becomes a "Pillar of salt" the Alchemic
synonym for matter. In this subjection of the "woman" to the "man", and the
dire results engendered of it, consists the "Fall", and the fact that it entails
these results demonstrates that such subjection is not according to the
Divine order, but is an inversion of that order. The soul should ever seek
upwards to the Divine Will (of the Spirit); and instead of seeking downwards
to the mind, should draw the mind up with her. Thus it comes to be that in
the sixth station (the world of animal nature), which corresponds to the sixth
creative "day" of Genesis, man is still in the making, and in order to attain
to the "measure stature of the Christ", and from man potential become man
actual and perfect, he must enter upon the seventh and last world of
Kabbalistic evolution, the topmost round of the Ladder of Jacob, which is
the vary threshold of the Divine. The seventh station (the world of human
nature) is the world of the demigods and heroes of Greek myth, of the
Saints of Christendom; and of the Buddhas of the Orient. Here man is no
more merely a superior animal, for the nature of the beast is expunged, and
new and more subtle senses replace the old; Divine illumination and
transcendent knowledge have closed the avenues of passion and sin - this
is the first Nirvana, or Resurrection.  But one step more, and the second
Nirvana is reached, and "Regina and Rex look face to face upon each
other" (the Idea and the Realisation are poised face to face); for the plane
of earth and of time is wholly transcended, the indissoluble, a selfhood and
life eternal are gained - the manhood is taken into God. Thus is celebrated
the mystic marriage of the Immaculate Virgin (the Soul) with her spouse the
Holy spirit; the yoke of bondage to Adam is broken, and for ever the curse
is reversed by the Ave Maria of Regeneration. The Greek Mysteries dealt
with two subjects only, the first being the drama of the "rape" and
restoration of Persephone, and the second, that of the incarnation,
martyrdom, and resuscitation of Dionysos; by Persephone was intended the
Soul, and by Dionysos, the Spirit.  The myth of Demeter and her daughter
Persephone told how the maiden strayed away from Arcadia (heaven) and
from her mother, to pluck flowers in the meads of Enna, and how the soil
there opened and caused her to fall through into the lower dark world of
Hades, ruled over by Pluto.  The despair of her mother at the loss reached
Zeus, the chief of the Gods, with the result that he relieved the position by
ordaining that, if the girl had not eaten of the fruit of Hades, she should
forthwith be restored to her mother for ever, but that if she had so eaten
she must abide a third of each year with Pluto and return to Demeter for
the other two thirds.  It proved that Persephone had unfortunately eaten a
Pomegranate in the lower world, so that her restoration to her mother could
not be permanent, but only periodic.  This myth, and the importance once
attached to it, can be appreciated only upon understanding its
interpretation.  It is the story of the soul, and is of the same nature as the
Mosaic myth of Adam-and Eve; Persephone is the human soul, and her
straying from her heavenly home and heavenly mother in quest of flowers
(symbol of fresh experiences) in the fields of Enna (signifying darkness and
bitterness), corresponds with the same promptines of desire that led to
Adam's disobedience in Eden and his fall thence to this outer world. The
eating of the fruit of Hades, alludes to the further degradation of the soul
by lusting after the inferior pleasures of this lower plane, which, as
symbolised by the pomegranate, is filled with the seeds of illusion and
vanity.  Therefore, until these false tendencies are eradicated and the
desires of the heart are utterly weaned from external delights, it is decreed
that there can be no permanent restoration of the soul to its source, but
merely periodic respite and refreshment ("from labour to refreshment") that
death brings when it with-draws the soul from the realm of Pluto to the
heaven-world; to be followed again and again by periodic descents into
material limitations and reascents into discarnate conditions, until the soul
becomes finally purged and perfected. By means of this great myth,
instruction was imparted concerning the history of the soul, its destiny and
prospects, and the doctrine of reincarnation was also given emphasis.

The great drama of the Greek Mysteries enunciates, as well as veils, two
cardinal verities: the Fall, and Redemption from that Fall. Thus from the sad
and woeful state into which Persophone falls she is finally rescued and
restored to the supernal abodes; but not until the coming of the Saviour,
represented in the Hermetic parable under the name of Osiris ("the risen
from the tomb")- the Man Regenerate.  This Redeemer, himself of divine
origin; is in other allegories represented under other names, but the idea
is always defined, and the intention obvious.  Indeed, Osiris is the Jesus of
our Christian doctrine, the supreme Initiate or "Captain of Salvation"; He is
the reflection and counterpart in Man of the supreme Lord of the Universe
(Greek - Dionysos, Hebrew - Adonai), the ideal type of humanity. He is
represented as in all things "instructed" and directed by Hermes; famed as
the celestial conductor of souls from the "dark abodes"; the wise and
ubiquitous God in whom the student recognises the Genius of the
Understanding, or Divine Reason, the "nous" of Platonic doctrine - and the
mystic "Spirit of Christ".  As the understanding of holy things and the faculty
of their interpretation are the gift of Hermes, the name of this God is given
to all science and revelation of an occult and divine nature.  Hermes was
therefore regarded as the Messenger or Angel of the Gods, descending
alike to the depths of the Hadean world to bring up souls from thence, and
ascending up beyond all heavens that he might fill all things. Lactantius, (a
Christian apologist of the early part of the fourth century), in his "Divine
Institutions", says: "Hermes affirms that those who know God are safe from
the attacks of the demon, and that they are not even subjected to Fate."
Now, the powers of Fate reside in the stars - that is, in the "astral" sphere,
whether Cosmic or micro-Cosmic - and the astral power was in Greek fable,
typified by Argos (the hundred-eyed genius of the starry zone), "Panoptes",
the all-seeing giant, whom it was the glory of Hermes to have outwitted and
slain.  The meaning of this allegory is, that they who have the Hermetic
secret are not subject to Fate, but have passed beyond the thrall of
metempsychosis and have freed themselves from "ceaseless whirling on
the wheel" of Destiny.  The spheres of delusion, dominated by the
sevenfold astral Powers, lie between the soul and God; beyond those
spheres are the celestial "Nine Abodes" wherein, say the Mysteries Demeter
vainly sought the lost Persephone. For from these abodes Persephone had
lapsed into a mundane and material state, and thereby had fallen under the
power of the planetary rulers; that is, of Fate, personified by Hekate.  On
the tenth day the Divine Drama shews Dometer meeting the Goddess of
Doom and Retribution, the terrible Hekate Triformis (personification of
"Karma") by whom she is told of Persephone's abduction and detention in
the Hadean world; thereafter Hekate becomes the constant attendant upon
Persephone. All this is, of course, pregnant with the deepest significance;
until the Soul falls into Matter, she has no Fate or Karma, for Fate is the
appanage and result of Time and Manifestation.  In the sevenfold astral
spheres the Moon is representative of Fate, and presents two aspects, the
benign and the malignant. Under the benign aspect the Moon is Artemis,
reflecting to the soul the divine light of Phoebus; under the malignant
aspect she is Hekate the Avenger, dark of countenance and three-headed,
being swift as a horse, sure as a dog, and as implacable as a lion.  The
Tree of Good and Evil, says the Kabbalah, has its roots in Malkuth - the
Moon.  It is sometimes asserted that the doctrine of Karma is peculiar to
Hindu theology, but on the contrary it is clearly exhibited alike in the
Hebrew, Hellenic, and Christian Mysteries; the Greeks called it Fate, and
the Christians know it as Original Sin.

Modern Freemasonry, in the line of succession from the Ancient Mysteries,
follows the traditional method of imparting instruction by means of myths,
and its canon of teaching in the Craft degrees contains two; one, the
building of King Solomon's Temple; the other, the death and burial of
Hiram Abiff. The story of the building of the Temple is a myth enshrining
philosophic truths, garbed in quasi-historical form, and relating to the
structure of the human soul, the Temple of the collective soul of Humanity. 
This "magnificent structure" has now been destroyed and thrown down from
its primitive eminence and grandeur; Humanity instead of being a collective
united organic whole, has become shattered into innumerable fragmentary
parts, not one stone standing upon another of its ruined building. It has lost
consciousness of the genuine secrets of its own origin and nature, and has
now to be content with the spurious substituted knowledge it picks up from
sense-impressions in this outer world. (See Paper, "The Mystical Quest in
Freemasonry").  The Masonic myth of the martyrdom of Hiram Abiff affords
us one of the profoundest mysteries open to contemplation. Students of the
mysteries will discern that the true purpose of the central legend of our
Craft is not to recount the temporal event of the death-agony of a murdered
Master, but to narrate the parable of a cosmic and universal loss. We are
here dealing with no tragedy that occurred during the erection of a building
in an eastern city, but with a moral disaster to universal humanity.  Hiram
Abiff is slain.  The high light and wisdom ordained to guide and enlighten
humanity are wanting to us, and the want of plans and designs to regulate
the disorders of individual and social life indicates to us all that some heavy
calamity has befallen us as a race. Indeed, the absence of clear and
guiding principle in the world's life forcibly reminds us of the utter confusion
into which the loss of that Supreme Wisdom, personified as Hiram, has
thrown us all; and causes every reflective mind to attribute to some fatal
catastrophe his mysterious disappearance.  We all long for that light and
wisdom which have become lost to us. Like the craftsmen in search of the
body, we go our different ways in search of what is lost, and many of us
make no discovery of importance throughout the length of our days. We
seek it in pleasure, in work, in all the varied occupations and diversions of
our lives; we seek it in intellectual pursuits, in Freemasonry, and those who
search farthest and deepest are those who become most conscious of the
loss and who are compelled to confess, in the words of the Christian
Scriptures: "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they
have laid him".  Where is Hiram buried? We are taught that the Wisdom of
the Most High - personified as King Solomon - ordered him to be interred
in a fitting sepulchre outside the Holy City.  He is buried "outside the Holy
City", in the same sense that the posterity of Adam have all been placed
outside the walls of Paradise, for, "nothing unclean can enter into the holy
place" which elsewhere in Scripture is called the Kingdom of Heaven. Our
ritual in cryptic terms indicates that the grave of Hiram is ourselves; each
of us is the sepulchre in which the smitten Muster is interred.  At the centre
of ourselves lies buried the "vital and immortal principle" that affiliates us to
the Divine Centre of all life, and that is never extinguished however
imperfect our lives may be.  In other words, Hiram Abiff represents the
Christ-principle immanent in every soul; crucified, dead and buried in all
who are not alive to its presence, but resident in all as a saving force; to
quote St. Paul - "Christ in you, the hope of glory".  Thus the temple of the
human soul; primordially constituted of the three principles WISDOM,
STRENGTH and BEAUTY, in due balance and proportion, and divinely
pronounced to be "very good", has deflected from that state.  Of the three
pillars that should support it, WISDOM (Gnosis) has fallen and become
replaced by a flexible and shifting prop of speculative opinion; STRENGTH
(divine dynamic energy) has become exchanged for the frailty of the
perishing flesh; and BEAUTY, the God-like radiant form that should adorn
and liken man to his Divine Creator, has become superseded by every
ugliness of imperfection. Man, then severed from conscious intercourse
with his Vital and Immortal Principle, is now a prisoner in captivity to himself
and his lower temporal nature. It remains for him to retrace his steps and
rebuild his temple; to continue no longer a bondsslave to his self-made
illusions and the attractions of "worldly possessions", but to become a free
man and mason, engaged in shaping himself into a living stone, for the
cosmic temple of a regenerate Humanity. Hence, to be installed in the chair
of King Solomon, means in its true sense the re-attainment of a Wisdom we
have lost and the revival in ourselves of the Divine Life-Essence which is the
basis of our being. With the reattainment of that wisdom all that is
comprised in the terms Strength and Beauty will be re-attained also, for the
three pillars stand in eternal association and balance. On the other hand,
not to re-attain-it, not to revive the Divine Life-Essence, during our sojourn
in this world, is to miss the opportunity which life in physical conditions
provides, since the after-death state, as the Ancient Mysteries taught, is not
one of labour at this work, but of refreshment and rest, when no real
progress, is possible.  Labour, understood in the sense here defined, and
Refreshment after it, constitute a rhythm of activity and passivity: a rhythm
similar to that which we daily experience in respect of waking and sleeping,
working and resting.  To speak of Refreshment, however, in the deeper
sense implied in Freemasonry is even more difficult than to speak of the
philosophic Labour; for it involves a subject to which few devote deep
thought - the subjective side of the soul's life as distinct from the objective
side which, for most men, is the only one at present known to them. But to
the wise, the study of the subjective half of life is as important us that of the
objective half, and without it he cannot make the circle of his
self-knowledge complete. Even the observant Masonic student is made
aware by the formula used at Lodge-closing, that by some great Warden
of life and death each soul is called into this objective world to labour upon
itself, and is in due course summoned from it to rest from its labours and
enter into subjective celestial refreshment, until once again it is recalled to
labour. For each the "day," the opportunity for work at self-perfecting, is
duly given; for each the "night" cometh when no man can work at that task;
which morning and evening constitute but one creative day of the soul's
life, each portion of that day being a necessary complement to the other. 
Perfect man has to unify these opposites in himself; so that for him, as for
his Maker, the darkness and the light become both alike.  The world-old
secret teaching upon this subject, common to the whole of the East, to
Egypt, the Pythagoreans and Platonists, and every College of the Mysteries,
is to be found summed up as clearly as one could wish in the "Phaedo" of
Plato, to which the student is referred as one of the most instructive of
treatises upon the deeper side of the science.  It testifies to the great
rhythm of life and death above spoken of, and demonstrates how that the
soul in the course of its career weaves and wears out many bodies and is
continually migrating between objective and subjective conditions, passing
from labour to refreshment and back again many times in its great task of
self-fulfilment.  And if Plato was, as was once truly said of him, but Moses
speaking Attic Greek, we shall not be surprised at finding the same
initiate-teaching disclosed in the words of Moses himself.  Does not the
familiar Psalm of Moses declare that man is continually "brought to
destruction", that subsequently a voice goes forth saying "Come again, ye
children of men!" and that the subjective spiritual world is his refuge from
one objective manifestation to another? What else than a paraphrase of this
great word of comfort is the Masonic pronouncement that, in the course of
its task of self-perfecting, the soul is periodically summoned to alternating
periods of labour and refreshment? It must be labour, and it must rest from
its labours; its works will follow it, and in the subjective world every
Brother's soul will receive its due for its work in the objective one, until such
time as its work is completed and it is made "a pillar in the House of God
and no more goes out" as a journeyman-builder into this sublunary
workshop.

"Pray far the peace of Jerusalem!  they shall
prosper that love it.
Peace is within her walls and plenteousness
within her palaces.
For my brethren and companions' sake I will say,
Peace be within thee."

(Psalm CXXII)