DORMER MASONIC STUDY CIRCLE #22
"THE RAISING OF THE DEAD"

(FREEMASONRY AND THE PAULINE DOCTRINE OF THE "GREAT WORK")

"It is thus, my Brother, that all M.Ms.
are .... from a figurative ... to
a reunion with the companions of their
former toil."

(Masonic Ritual)

"But some man will say, How are the dead
raised up? and with what body do they
come?"

(1st Corinthians, 15 - 35)

INTRODUCTION

As but few members of the Craft may be expected to have even a
superifcial acquaintance with ancient philosophy and variuos other
associated subjects which must be understood, at least to some
extent, before the allegorical portions of Masonic Ritual can be
studied intelligently and to advantage, a brief sketch will first
be given of the topics that are pertinent to this interpretation.

Every thoughtful student of the literature of the ancient
religions, including that of early Christianity, cannot but be
impressed by the fact that in each and all of them may be found
very clear intimations of a secret traditional lore, an arcane
science, handed down from time immemorial. Each of the great
nations of antiquity had an esoteric as well as an exoteric
religion: the secret body of knowledge was reserved for temple-
initiates; while the popular religion was made up of moral
precepts, myths, allegories and ceremonial observances, which
reflected, more or less faithfully, the mystic tenets. "All the
eastern nations," says Origen, "the people of India, the Persians,
the syrians, conceal sacred mysteries under their religious myths;
the sages and philosophers of all religions penetrate the true
meaning, while the ignorant see only the exterior symbol - the bark
that covers it." But this was equally true of all the cultured
nations of antiquity; and the noblest of the philosophers and
sages, with but few exceptions, gained their profounder knowledge
through regular initiation at the schools of the Mysteries, which
in ancient timesw were the true centres of learning. In Greece the
Mysteries were established in various forms, and were under the
direction of the State. The most notable were the Eleusinia, which
were of great antiquity, and continued until the invasion of Alaric
the Goth, in the year 396 of our present era. During the first
century the Mysteries were the recognized religion of Greece, and
were celebrated in every city of the country and in the Greek
colonies in Asia Minor. The principal centre of the Greater
Eleusinia was the superb temple at Eleusis, near Athens; while the
Lesser Eleusinia, at which candidates participated in the
purificatory rites and were given elementary instruction,
preparatory to initiation into the Greater Mysteries, had their
saeat at Agra, on the river Atissos. The Lesser Mysteries were
celebrated in February, and the Greater in September, annually. The
celebration of the Greater Eleusinia, which lasted nine days, began
in public as a pageant and festival in honor of Demeter and
Persephone; but the telestic rites were celebrated in the solemn
secrecy of the temple, to which none but initiates were admitted.
Every initiate was bound by an oath of inviolable secrecy; hence
nothing of importance i sknown concerning the precise form of the
initiatory ceremonies. There is good reason, however, for believing
that in the Eleusinian ritual zodical symbolism was employed, and
that some of the instruction was given in the form of dramatic
represenations. The symbolism of Zodiac was really a cryptic
language in which certain facts concerning the inner nature of man
were expressed; and it was common to the initiates of all ancient
religions. There was no concealment of the fact that the telestic
rites were designed for moral purification, the developement of the
spiritual faculties, and the attainment of conscious immortality;
nor was there any secrecy about the general principles of the
perfective philosophy, which were openly inculcated. Thus Plato,
arguing always for the immortality of the soul and human
perfectibility, expatiates upon moral subjects with the greatest
clearness, but whenever he has for his subject the inner
constitution of man he is purposely vague, and in treating of the
subjective worlds and the post-mortem states of the soul, he
invariably employes the medium of allegory. The main point where
the arcane system sharply diverges from conventional schools of
thought is in the means of acquiring knowledge. To make this clear,
Plato s analysis of the four faculties of the soul, with their
corresponding degrees of knowledge, may be cited:-

THE VISIBLE SENSUOUS WORLD

Soul faculty                                      Degree of
knowledge
1. Perception of images                    opinion
2. Psychic groping                             illusory knowledge

THE INTELLIGIBLE - SUPRA-SENSUOUS WORLD

3. Philosophic reason                         wisdom
4. Direct cognition                               true knowledge

The first degree -  perception of images  - covers the whole field
of the inductive physical sciences; the second degree -  psychic
groping  - embraces exoteric religion and all phases of blind
belief; thus the first two degrees, both of which pertain to the
lower mind, comprise all the knowledge that is available to those
whose consciousness does not transcend the illusions of the
material world. The third degree, however, relates to speculative
philosophy which seeks to arrive at first principles by the effort
of pure reason, while the fourth degree is the direct apprehension
of truth by the lucid mind independently of any reasoning process.
These two latter degrees, which pertain to the higher mind,
represent the field of knowledge open to those whose consciousness
rises to the world of spiritual reality. The exoteric scientist and
religionist rely upon the physical senses, the psychic emotions,
and the intellectual faculties, as these are in the present stage
of human evolution; and although the scientist has somewhat
enlarged the scope of the senses by the employment of mechanical
devices, such as the telescope and the microscope, the religionist
still puts his trust in mutilated records transmitted to him from
the remote past. On the other hand, the esoteric student, refusing
to be confined within the narrow limits of the senses and the
mental faculties, and recognising that the powers of the soul are
severly hampered and obscured by its imperfect instrument, the
physical body, devotes himslef to intensive self-evolution
involving the conquest and utilization of all the forces and
faculties that lie latent within himself. By gaining conscious
control of the Hidden potencies which are the proximate causes of
his individual evolution, the candidate for intitation seeks to
traverse in a comparatively brief period of time the path leading
to spiritual illumination and liberation from terrestrial bondage,
hurrying forward. as it were, towards that goal which the human
race as a whole; advancing at an almost imperceptible rate of
progress, wilI reach only after aeons of time. His effort is not so
much to "known  as.to "become"; and herein lies the tremendous
import of the Delphic inscription, "KNOW THYSELF ; which is the
key-note of initiation. For the initiate understads that true self-
knowledge can be attained only through self-development in the
highest possible sense of the term; he is aware that it is a
process of trancendental self-conquest, the giving birth to himself
as a spiritual being and the evolving from the concealed essence of
his own embryonic nature of a self-Iuminous immortal body.  In the
present Paper it is proposed to examine the stages and the
phenomena of psychological development as these are portrayed in
the system we know as Craft Freemasonry, with special reference to
St. Paul s description of them in the first Corinthan Epistle,
which will be surveyed from the Maisonic standpoint and with the
assistance of certain evidence that may be new to many of our
Brethren.

It is desirable, however, before proceeding to the main subject of
our Paper, to outline the principles; of the esoteric phiIosophy of
the mystery systems of the past as this forms the philosophical
basis of their lineal descendant modern Speculative Freemasonry.
According to the esoteric philosophy the absolute Deity is
considered to beyond the spheres of existence and ulterior to Being
itself; the world of true Being is that of the Logos, or Nous, the
realm of divine ideas, or archetypes, which are the eternal
patterns, so to speak, of all things in the manifested universe. By
a paradox which defies the reasoning faculty, but which is readily
resolved intuitively, the God is said to be apart from, and
independent of, the universe, and yet to permeate every atom of it.
The God is the abstract Unit, which is the origin of all number,
but which never loses Its unit-value, and cannot be divided into
fractions; while the Logos is the manifest or collective Unit, a
deific Individuality, tho collectivty of a countless host of Logoi,
who ars differentiated into seven hierarehies, constituting in the
aggregate; the Second Logos, the uttered Thought or Word. From the
Archetypal world of the Logos emanate sucessively the Psychic and
the Material worlds, and to these- three may be added a fourth, the
Phantasmal world, which ancient writers usually include in the
Psychic. The secret doctrine further teaches that all the universe
contains is also contained in man; it affirms that the origin of
man is in the Deity, and that his true self or individuality is a
Logos, a Manjfested God. Hence, analagous with the universe or
macroposm, man, the microcosm, has three bodies, which are alluded
to in the Sacred Writings of the Eastern and Western traditions as
follows:-

        EASTERN                            WESTERN

        Upanishads                          V. of the S.L., (N.T.)

1.    CAUSAL BODY.                   SPIRITUAL BODY

2.    SUBTILE BODY                    PSYCHIC BODY

3.     GROSS BODY                      PHYSICAL BODY 

In mystical writings these three, together with a fourth body, the
perfected vesture of the immortal Self, are given as corresponding
to the four metaphysical elements, and also the earth, moon,
sidereal system, and sun, they are therefore spoken of as the
earthly or carnal body (the muddy vesture of decay"; Shakespeare
terms it), the lunar or water-body, the sidereal or air body, and
the solar or fire body. The spiritual body is, strictly speaking,
not a body at all, but an ideal, archetypal form, ensphered, as it
were, by the  pneuma  or primordial principle which is the duality
of manifestation generates all forces and elements; it is therefore
called the  causal body,  because from its sphere all the other
bodies are engendered; amd all these lower forms are enveloped by
the same circumambiet aura, which is visible to the seer as an
oviform faint film of blusih haze. Semi-latent within this
pneumatic ovum is the regenerative force, the Light of the Logos,
which is energising becomes what may be described as living,
conscious electricity, of incredible voltage; this the  good
serpent  of ancient. symbology, and, taken with the pneumatic ovum,
it was also represented in the familiar symbol of the egg and the
serpent, It is called in the Sanskrit writings  kundalini,  the
annular or ring-form force, and in the Greek "speirema"; the
serpent-coil. It is this force which, in the telestic work, or
cycle of initiation, weaves from the primal substance of the auric
ovum, upon the ideal form of archetype it contains, immortal solar
body of atomic non-molecular substance. The solar body is so called
because in its visible appearance it is self-luminous like the sun,
and has a golden radiance; its aureola displays a filmy
opalescence. The psychic, or lunar, body, through which  the Nous
acts in the psychic world, is molecular in structure, but of far
finer substance than the elements composing the gross physical
form, to whose organism it closely corresponds, having organs of
sight, hearing, and the rest. In appearance it has a silvery
lustre, tinged with de;icate violet; and its aura is of the palest
blue, with an interchanging play of all the prismatic colours,
rendering it iridescent. The phyiscal body, its physiological
relation to psychology will necessarily have to be considered
somewhat in detail in elucidating the telestic work; but first it
should be explained that another body is sometimes spoken of in
mystical writings. This body is called in Sanskrit  kama rupa", the
form engendered by lust and it comes into existence only ofter the
death of the physical body; it is a phantasm shaped. from the dregs
and offluvia of matter by the image-creating power of the gross
animanl mind, and it has the shadowy semblance of the physical body
from which it was derived, and is surrounded by a cloudy aura of
brick-red hue. The physicalbody may itslef be considered to be an
objective microcosm, an epitome of the material world, to every
department of which its organs and functions correspond and arein
direct relation. Moreover, as the organism through which the soul
contacts external nature, its organs correspond to, and are the
repsective instruments of, the powers and faculties of the soul.
 Thus the body has four principal life-centres which are, roughly
speaking, analogues of the four worlds of esoteric philosophy, and
of the four manifested generic powers of the soul; these four
divisions are as follows:-

1. The head, or brain, is the organ of the Nous, or higher mind

2..The region of the heart, including all the organs above the
diaphragm, is the seat of the lower mnd including the psychic
nature.

3. The region of the navel is the centre of the passional nature,
comprising the emotions, desires and passions.

4..The procreative centre is the seat of the vivifying forces on
the lowest plane of existence.

It is unnecessary, for the purpose of our present subject, to go
into further details concerning these correspondences, save only in
regard to the nervous system and the forces operating through it,
There are two nervous structures: the cerebro-spinal, consisting of
the brain and the spinal cord; and the sympathetic or ganglionio
system. These two structures are virtually distinct yet intimately
associated in their ramifications. The sympathetic system consists
of a series of distinct nerve-centres, or ganglla - small masses of
vascular neurine- extending on each side of the spinal column from
the head to coccyx (the base of the spine) Some knowledge of these
ganlia and the forces associated with them is indispensable to the
student; and as the occult nature is more fully explained in the
Upanishads than in any other available ancient works, the teaching
contained therein will be taken as a guide, and utilised here. The
ganglia are called  chakras,  and forty-nine of them are counted,
of which the sevn principal ones are the following:-

1.  SACRAL
2.  PROSTATIC
3.  EPIGASTRIC
4.  CARDIAC
5.  PHARYNGEAL
6.  CAVERNOUS
7.  CONARIUM

Of these only the seventh, the conarium or pineal, need be spoken
of particularly; it is a small conical, dark-gray body situated in
the brain immediately behind the extremely of the third ventricle,
in a groove between between the nates, and above a cavity filled
with sabulous matter composed of phosphate and carnoate of lime.
This  pineal body  is supposed by modern anatomists to be the
vestige of an atrophied eye, and for this reason it is termed by
them  the unpaired eye ; but although atropied physically, the
 pineal body  is still the organ of spiritual vision when its
higher function is restored by the vivifying force known in the
East as  kundalini,  and hence it is called esoterically  the third
eye , or the eye of the seer. The esoteric philosophy teaches that
when, through the action of man s spiritual will, whether by his
conscious effort, or unconsciuosly so far as his lower mind is
concerned, the latent  kundalini  is aroused to activity, it
displaces the slow-moving nervous force or neuricity, and then
becomes the agent of the telestic or perfecting work. It is further
stated that as  kundalini  passes from one ganglion to another its
voltage is raised, the ganglia being like so many electric cells
coupled for intensity, and that in each ganglion, or  chakra  it
libreates and partakes of the quality peculiar to that centre. In
the Sanskrit mystical literature the currents of the  kundalini ,
as also the channels they pursue, are called  nadis , meaning
 pipes  or  channels,  and the three principal ones are:-





1  SUSHUMNA: which passes from the terminus of the spinal cord to
the top of the cranium, at a point termed the "brahmarandra". or
 door of Brahma. 

2  PINGALA: which corresponds to the right sympathetic. 

3  IDA: which corresponds to the left sympathetic,

The "kundalini" force, as specialized in the ganglionic systems
becomes the seven "tattvas , which in the Apocalypse are called the
seven  pneumata  ( breaths ), since they are differentiations of the
Great Breath, the "World-Mother", symbolized by the moon.
Concurrent with these seven lunar forces are five solar forces
pertaining to the cerebro-spinal system, called the five  pranas"
 vital airs , or "lifewinds". The  tattvas , or subtile elements,
with the ganglia
( chakras ) to which they correspond, are as follows:-

Element                        Ganglion
Earth.                            Sacral
Water.                           Prostatic
Fire.                              Epigastirc
Air.                                Cardiac
Aether .                         Pharyngeal
Undifferentiated            Cavernouis
 Brahma ,  the 
   Evolver  (Logos)        Conarium

The "pranas" are the following:

The  distributing life-wind" connected with "earth.  
The "down-going life-wind  connected with  water  
The "uniting life-wind  connected with "fire  
The  out-going life-wind" connected with air. 
The "up-going life-wind" connected with "aether".

The Apocalypse represents these twelve forces, the seven  breaths 
and the five winds", as corresponding to the twelve signs of the
zodiac . Students will know that the zodiac is a belt of the
celestial sphere, about seventeen degrees in breadth, containing
the twelve constellations which the sun traverses during the year
in passing around the ecliptic; within this zone are confined the
apparent motions of the moon and major planets. The zodiacal circle
was divided by the ancients into twelve equal portions called
signs, which were designated by the names of the constellations
then adjacent to them, in the following order:-

1  Aries, the RAM.
2  Taurus, the BULL
3  Gemini, the TWINS.
4  Cancer, the CRAB
5  Leo, the LION.
6  Virgo, the VIRGIN
7  Libra, the BALANCE.
8  Scorpio, the SCORPION
9  Sagittarius, the BOWMAN
10  Capricornus; the GOAT
11  Aquarius, the WATER BEARER
12  Pisces, the FISHES.

Aside from its astronomical utility, the scheme of the zodiac was
employed to symbolise the relations between the macrocosm and the
microcosm, each of the twelve signs being made to correspond to one
of the twelve greater Gods of the ancient pantheon and assigned as
the "house" of one of the seven sacred planets; each sign,
moreover, being said to govern a particular portion of the human
body. The zodiac is also divided into four trigons ( triangles ),
named respectively after the four manifested elements, earth,
water, fire and air, to each of which three signs are ascribed.
Each zodiacal sign is divided into three decans, or parts
containing ten degrees each, there being three hundred and sixty
degrees in the circle; and to each deacn is attributed one of the
thirty-six constellations which lie north and south of the zodiac.
Thus there are forty-eight ancient constellations forming, as it
were, four zodiacs and the sun its planets are considered as a
central constellation, thereby making up the mystic  number forty-
nine, or seven times seven. Each of these constellations being made
to symbolise a principle, force or faculty in man, the entire
scheme constitutes a symbolic being, a celestial man, pictured on
the starry vault. The Sun-God is the Self of this  Grand man", and
the four quarters of the zodiac, with the portions of the heavens
associated with them, are the somatic divisions of the manifested
form of the Heavenly Man.

The foregoing covers the topics which must necessarily be referred
to in elucidating the recondite meaning of our Masonic Ritual; but
in order to convey a clearer conception of its practical and
psychologioal application, a further explanation will now be given
of the action of the "serpent force  ("kundalini ) in the telestic
or perfective work. This work, which is spoken of in mystical
literature as the  Magnum Opus  or "Great Work , has to be preceded
by the most rigid purificatory discipline, and it is possible only
for the man who has attained a high state of mental and physical
purity. The neophyte who has acquired the "purifying virtues"
before entering upon the systematic course of introspective
meditation by which the spiritual forces are awakened, must aIso as
a necessary preliminary gain almost complete mastery; of his
thoughts, with the ability to focus his mind undeviatingly upon a
single detached idea or abstract concept, excluding from the mental
field all associated ideas and irrelevant notions. If successful in
this mystic meditation, the candidate for initiation eventually
obtains the power of arousing the  speirema".("paraklete" or
"kundalini"), and can thereby at will enter into the state of
"manteia,  the sacred trance of seership. The four mantic states
are not psychic trances or somnambulic conditions; they pertain to
the spiritual nature; and in every stage of the  manteia  complete
consciousness and self-command are retained. Proficiency in the
noetic contemplation, with the arousing of the "speirema  and the
conquest of the life-centres, leads to knowledge of spiritual
realities (the science of which constitites the Gnosis), and the
acquirement of cetrtain mystic powers, and it culminates in
emancipation fron physical existence through the "birth from above"
when the deathless solar body has been fully formed. In arousing
the "kundalini" by conscious effort in meditation, the  sushumna ,
although it is an all-important force, is ignored, and the mind is
concentrated upon the two side currents; for the  sunshumna" cannot
be energised alone, and it does not start into activity until the
"idai  and the "pingala  have preceded it, forming a positive and
a negative current along the spinal cord. These two currents on
reaching the sixth "chakra", situated at the back of the nasal
passages, radiates to the right and left, along the line the
eyebrows; then the  sushumna , starting at the base of the spinal
cord, proceeds along the spinal marrow, its passage through each
section thereof (corresponding to a sympathetic ganglion) being
accompanied by a violent shock or rushing sensation, due to the
accession of force (increased voltage) until it reaches the
conarium, and thence passes outward through the "brahmarandra , the
three currents thus forming a cross in the brain. For further
information concerning this aspect of the work students are
recommended to study carefully the excellent Paper written by our
Vice-President W.Bro. J.R. Cleland M.A., D.D., entitled, "The
Masonic Trinity and the Way of  the Cross. " In the initial stage
of the work the seven psychic colours are seen, and when the
sushumna" impinges upon the brain there follows the lofty
consciousness or the seer, whoose mystic "third eye" now becomes as
our Ritual poetically expresses it, "the dormer window". In the
next stage, as the brain-centres are successively "raised from the
dead" by the serpent-force, the seven "spiritual sounds" are heard
in the tense and vibrant aura of the seer. In the succeeding stage,
sight and hearing become blended into a single sense, by which
colours are heard and sounds are seen, or, to word it differently,
colour and sound become one, and are perceived by a sense that is
neither sight nor hearing but both. Similarly, the psychic senses
of taste and smell become unified; and the next step is that the
two senses thus reduced from the four are merged in the interior,
intimate sense of touch, which in turn vanishes into the
epistemonic faculty, the gnostic power of the seer - exalted above
all sense perception - to cognise eternal realities. This is the
sacred trance called in Sanskrit  samadhi", and in Greek "manteia";
and in the ancient literature of both these languages four such
traces are spoken of. These stages of seership are, however but the
beginning of the telestic labour, the culmination of which is, as
we have already explained, rebirth in the imperishable solar body.
It is desirable at this juncture, to refer to our Masonic symbolism
relating to this Solar body which, in the platonist and other
mystical schools, is called. the. "Augoeides" or "self-radiant"
body, and by many other names. Its symbol is always the Sun, and is
the figure of Ra (the Sun) carried upon a boat it is a well known
feature in Egyptian hieroglyphs; and in the V. of the S.L., it is
also uniformly alluded to as the Sun, appearing to those whose
vision. can behold it as a "glistering body" of surpassing
splendour, like "the Sun at the meridian." To those Brethren who
are unfamiliar with the psychological symbolism of antiquity, it
may seem strange to be told, as the Lecture on our First Degree
T.B. tells us at a Sun, Moon and stars exist within the person of
each of us, but we are intended to realise that in addition to our
merely physical body, we each possess other interior bodies serving
as the vehicles of our emotions, and of our lower and higher
mentailty respectively. Man is a highly composite being, as he must
needs be if he is an image and summary of the Universe; he wears
not one but many bodies, each having its appropriate function and
sphere of action, St. Paul, a great authority on this subject,
asserts that man has bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial; one
body of the Sun (i.e., a solar body), another of the Moon (i.e., a
lunar body), and another of the stars (i.e., a starry or astral
body); each of these differeing from the others in its glory or
form, and each "seed" (distinctive principle) having its own body.
Our physical husk is but the densest and external body of them all;
it is an  overcoat  or rough shell into which the others are
assembled into unity; and being the outermost and coarest it is the
first to decay and decompose into its elements, leaving the real
Man, after its death, standing clothed in his more ethereal
sheaths. Our mental and emotional natures are symbolised by the
 Moon  (mental body) and "the stars" (emotional body), and are
numbered among our "bodies terrestrial", for they serve very useful
purposes in our temporal life; by them we "govern the night", -
"night" signifying the field of our rational worldlyconsciousness,
which is from above. " This "light from above" is symbolised by the
Sun, and as the natural sun is a body far vaster than our planet,
and as it is ethereal and self-radiant while our earth is dense and
non-luminous, so is this metaphysical "Sun" - the soul or "sol" -
something far grander and wiser than the elementary personality
revolving around it, and over which it is appointed to preside and
"rule by day" i.e., form the perpetual light of the spiritual light
of the spiritual world. The Masonic "Sun" is our real Ego, our Soul
or Higher Self, the one permanent and incorruptible principle in
every human being; it is a "body celestial", or solar body.
Students should particularly note that on the T.B. of the First
Degree the position of this Sun is in the N.E. corner, and is
therefore in correspondence with the fact that it is in the N.E.
corner of the Lodge that the physical person of the newly made
Freemason is placed as a foundation, upon which he is enjoined to
"raise a superstructure, perfect in all its parts". The
suoerstructure referred to is, of course, the solar body, and
although a superphysical one, it is none the less built up from the
personality in the physical world, which serves as its fulcrum and
foundation stone. We are all, at every moment, silently building
soemthinginto our solar body, and in our Masonic system this is
taught us in the narrative concerning the erection of King
Solomon s Temple, when we are told that the various building
materials for the Temple were prepared at a distance, then brought
together to Jerusalem and there assembled silently, "without sound
of axe or hammer, " into a perfect structure. All this is metaphor
or picture-language, describing the work of spiritual Masonry, and
is intended for the guidance and instruction of genuine aspirants
for Initiation. How then must one set about it to become a real
Initiate? To this question every detail of our Craft Ritual and its
explanatory Lecture contributes an answer. The answers themselves
are admittedly often deliberately cryptic and therefore need
deciphering, but this is of set purpose and is designed in order to
test our powers of insight, whilst it also ensures that secret
truths are effectively veiled from those who are not qualified.
Moreover, it is the expressed intention of our system, which is
"veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols, " that the answers
provided by means of the monitorial instruction given in open Lodge
should be supplemented by every possible research and study in
other quarters. In practice, the really earnest aspirant will find
light breaking in upon him from the most unlikely sources, he will
find that every book he reads and almost everyone with whom he
comes into contact, contrives to contribute something to the
attainment of his quest, and he will wonder whether ther be not
some conspiracy of invisible watchers at work guiding him to see
truths formerly passed by without notice. There are, however, other
and more effective means of grace and help. Throughout the ages the
aspirant to Inititation has found it essential to pass under the
personal tuition of some expert teacher who can give him the help
suited to his personal requirements. Hence it is that, our Craft,
following this traditional method, declares that the
ApprenticeFreemason is, "To seek for a Master and from him to gain
instruction" _(First Section of the First Lecture), for our Lodges
were never intended to be places for instruction, but as places for
corporate realisation of the truths in which we are to be
instructed privately elsewhere. The true relation between Master
and disciple is that of spiritual directorship, and it rests upon
not only the moral duty of every more advanced Brother to help the
less advanced, but upon the spiritual principle that whoever has
freely received must as freely give, and that no one is initiated
for his private advantage. This phase of our science is sadly
neglected under exisitng consitions, although there are many of us
who are convinced that the time is not far distant when our Craft
will enter into its heritage and the teachers will appear in our
midst; in the meantime this Study Circle exists to prepare the way
by making known to all concerned the real meaning and purpose of
Freemasonry. The present Paper is designed to show that our system
of Speculative Freemasonry embodies the traditional three stages of
philosophic mysticism; first, the preliminary stage of
purification; second, the intermediate stage know as
"Illumination;" these two stages leading to a third, the "Sublime
Degree" of Perfection, by mystical death and resurrection. Of the
nature of this great experience which is shadowed forth in our
Craft Third Degree we shall speak later. For the moment we would
direct the attention of students to the fact that such a subject
could have no place in Operative Masonry, and that it belongs
exclusively to the domain of philosophic mysticism to which our
Craft became converted and comitted in the 18th century. It is,
moreover, a subject requiring for its cultivation the privacy of an
Order devoted to "the anceint Landmarks and established customs" in
the line of mystical tradition, such as our Fraternity was intended
to be, and is incapable of simple explanation. We shall be helped
in our understanding of the subject, however, if this introduction
is brought to a conclusion with a brief outline of the traditional
gnosis which forms the philosophic basis of the Masonic system.
This teaches that the human soul, once fashioned as a reflex and in
the likeness, of the sevenfold perfection of the Divine Light, has
fallen from that high estate, and that the "fall" or severance of
the soul from its source, has involved for each one of us a death
or deadening of the soul s powers of perception, will,
understanding, and affection. In their place natural man employs
only a substituted set of faculties which are relatively spurious,
since they are but a travesty of those the use of which he has
lost. Yet whilst these substituted faculties are the badge
signifying our loss, they are also the very instruments by which,
, in the first instance, the way to reintegration is prepared;
whilst, subsequently, by their surrender and introversion, or, to
use religious metaphor, by their sacrifice in a mystical death and
burial, the restoration of the larger faculties they now inhibit
becomes automatically effected. It is thus, then, and after this
manner only, that we are "raised on the f...p... of f.... ", and we
must look for the accomplishment in ourselves of the mystery
implied in those words. It should be noted that the teaching
recognises that the process of the resurgence of the soul from the
"grave" of the senses complementary to, and the corrective of, the
process ot submergence which it has previously undergone. In other
words, we are given the assurance that "that which is lost" will,
when "time and circumstances permit", be restored to as; and the
doctrine indicates that in the course of our evolution re-creation
through the ages we have in some small measure recovered from our
loss of faculty, although it is emphasised that we are still far
short of perfection and the possession of our full powers. The
extent of our recovery is to be gauged by the present average
standard of racial consciousness, and this, it must be conceded in
mainly sensuous, human knowledge being substantially dependent upon
and limited by the evidence brought to the mind by the five senses.
For this reason Man, in the present age, and in his present
imperfectly developed state, is symbolised in Freemasonry by the
number Five which constantly recurs in our Craft system; the same
significance is also attached to the Pentagon and the Pentalpha
five pointed star. We are nows in the position to understand that
our Masonic system proclaims that the real Initiate is one in whom
the restituton of the "genuine secrets" of his own being has taken
place; one who, by Divine help and his own industry, has
outstripped the slow evolutionary progress of the race. But, we are
shown shown in dramatic representation that such restoration is not
possible until the senses are mortified and the supremacy of the
reasoning minds is deposed, for these constitute an actual
impediment to the knowledge of Reality, and it is only after
undergoing "that last and greatest trial" that there dawns within
us "that bright morning star whose rising brings peace and
salvation to the faithful and obedient of the human race". Then the
geometrical emblem of the five pointed star is superseded by a six-
pointed star, the "Seal of Solomon" formal of two interlaced
triangles in balance,and testifying to the "raising" or the rive
senses to a higher power by the super-addition of a transcendent
sixth sense, involving a new and higher quality of intellectual
sight; this the the emblem of the man in whom the material and the
spiritual natures have become so equipped that he is master of
both, and can wield either of them with equal ease.

One final word; the subject of the Paper which follows this
Introduction is one presenting many difficulties to the student,
for those truths are difficult at first even to grasp notionally.
What has been said here might be amplified and abundantly
corroborated by reference to a vast range of literature, anciental
and modern, but only personal experience can verify the vailidity
of the records. We can never be book taught into a knowledge of the
Mysteries of which our Craft treats; books, lectures and
explanations serve a very useful purpose in stimulating the mind,
but every Brother must test and learn these truths for himself. In
our studies undertaken in this Circle we are constantly drawing
aside veils - the veils of allegory that shroud the teachings of
our Craft; let us remember that as "sons of the widow" we havve one
common Mother. An ancient Hermetic oracle declares that to lift the
Widow s veil spells death; the death signified, however, is death
of the kind implied in our Third Degree, and just as in the
Ceremony the candidate is directed to gaze upon the "emblems of
mortality", so in the career of the true Master Mason there comes
the time when he can look upon his former self as but a memory that
has passed with the "hours of darkness", and thenceforward he
enters upon a new life with the light of his own "morning star"
given him for his guide. May these things com etrue for the members
of our Circle and all others of our Brethren whom these words may
reach.

SO MOTE IT BE