FOREWORD

by
W.Bro.R.A.L. Harland, P. M., Lodge No. 1679
President of the Circle

It is impossible to deal in an exhaustive way with the subject of
the Third Degree, which is capable of many and various
interpretations.  To the numerous questions that will inevitably
arise in the minds of students there are no authoritative answers
and the profound meanings enshrined within the dramatic ritual
are best left to individual reflection.  All that the author of a
Paper can hope to do, therefore, is to try to share with others
his ideas, thereby stimulating thought, and Wor.  Bro.  C. H.
Blake has written an admirable treatise on these lines.

We are all aware that in Freemasonry the predominant features of
our system are derived from the Volume of the Sacred Law, and
this is why the Ladder by which we aim to reach the summit of our
profession rests, as may be seen on the Tracing Board of the
First Degree, upon the opened Bible.  There are in the Third
Degree certain Hebrew elements which are profoundly significant,
and Wor.Bro.Blake has rightly drawn attention to the Old
Testament narrative of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. 
The sagas of Genesis are unexcelled, even unique, and their
psychological verisimilitude is unerring.  The stories of the
wilderness wanderings, of the newly emancipated slaves who would
gladly have returned to the fleshpots of Egypt rather than endure
the rigorous life of the desert, and who so vexed the righteous
soul of Moses that he lost his temper with them and forfeited his
right to enter the Promised Land, have always suggested an
allegory of the pilgrimage of the soul through the "wilderness"
of this world.  Moreover, the foundations of the theistic
interpretation of the Universe and of man's place in it are laid
down once and for all in the first chapter of Genesis.  Man's
place in the Universe is that of a creature indeed, but a
creature made "in the image and likeness of God". He can only
fulfil his true destiny as he is content to submit himself to the
beneficent Will of God who created him.  The root of sin is
"hubris", the ambition to usurp the place which in the nature of
things belongs only to the Creator.  In the whole range of sacred
literature nothing is more relevant to the mystery of the Third
Degree than the apparently naive, but in fact inexhaustibly
profound, legends of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tower of
Babel.

The keynote of the Third Degree is sounded forth in the simple
declaration: "To seek for that which is lost". It vibrates,
however, three Great Chords; the universal confession of a
dreadful loss; the deathless intuition that somewhere "that which
is lost" is preserved; and, the Faith that the loss will
eventually be restored.  It should now be possible to express
what follows from the foregoing in terms of comparative
simplicity.  As the Craft legend runs, upon the literal side of
it, the purpose of a great King was to erect a superb structure. 
He was assisted in that work by another King who supplied the
building materials, by a skilful Artificer whose business was to
put these together according to a preordained plan, and by large
companies of craftsmen and labourers.  In the course of the work
an evil conspiracy arose, resulting in the destruction of the
chief architect and preventing the completion of the Building,
which remained imperfect from "the want of those plans and
designs, which had hitherto been regularly supplied to the
various classes of the workmen". This suggests that we must
approach the mystery of the Third Degree along the line of
mystical rather than literal interpretation.  It is in this
sense, as Wor.Bro. Blake indicates, that the "three Grand Masters
who bore sway "at the erection of the Building, are a triad
expressing the nature of the Divinity in manifestation, which is
held to possess Three distinct phases, appearing as Three
Hypostases or "Persons". These three quasi-historical characters
combine to typify the threefold creative method of the Deity;
whose "Wisdom" (symbolised by Solomon) contrives our creation
subjective and ideally; whose "Strength" (represented by Hiram
King of Tyre) and resources project the world of Nature as the
material out of which the creative idea is to take shape in the
creature, and whose architectonic and geometrical power finally
moulds that idea into objective form, perfection and "Beauty".
H.A., therefore, is the personification of the third aspect of
the Divine creative energy.  He represents, in terms of Hebrew
mysticism, the Cosmic Builder; the Great Architect "by whom all
things were made" and "in whom", as St. Paul says, using Masonic
imagery, "all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an
holy temple in the Lord". (Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter II,
verse 21.) The name H.A., sometimes given as Adoniram, means the
representative or messenger from the Lord ("Adonai") or Father
("Abba").  It is the Hebrew form of the Greek "Hermes", who was
also the son of the All-Father (Zeus) and the messenger and
intermediary between the gods and men to show men how to live and
give them safe conduct through death.  In the Graeco-Alexandrian
scriptures he is called both Hermes and Thoth (the Divine Thought
or Creative Mind) and appears as the great Initiator and Teacher
of hidden knowledge.  Studens of the Craft traditions will be
aware that in some of the "Old Charges" the name of Hermes
(instead of Hiram) is introduced into the narrative of the
legendary history.  H.A., then, Masonically speaking, is the
personal aspect of the Third Logos, the "Son of the Widow", Who
is also the Creator Lord of the triune (celestial, psychic and
material) manifested Cosmos; and, following the uniform procedure
of Initiation system, he typifies in the personal Mystery of the
Craft, that member of the Divine triad Who is the Principle of
human Exemplars, the "Word" that is made flesh ".

To conclude this brief review, we should bear in mind that the
legend of the Third Degree, in which lies the essence of Masonic
doctrine, is an adaptation of a very old one which existed in
various forms long before its association with modern
Freemasonry.  It gives expression to a form of cosmogonical
doctrine common to every human race since the beginning of time;
a doctrine explaining the genesis, fall, and destiny of man, and
accounting for the mystery of evil and disorder with which the
world is now afflicted by a catastrophe which occurred before the
world order assumed its present physicalised condition.  The same
doctrine was taught under other veils among all the nations of
antiquity.  Through all the cataclysmic events which make that
ancient world so strangely like our own, the prophets saw God at
work creating and moulding a new community of faith and
obedience, and some of them even saw that it would become
world-wide.  Mercy and judgment alike were characteristic of His
working and it was hard then, as it is still, to reconcile these
two.  But one prophet did reach the daring thought that the
suffering which God's judgment brings might be accepted and borne
by the innocent on behalf of the guilty.  He may not have
realized that he was forshadowig a new understanding of God's
attitude to men. God had to act in decisive fashion right down in
human history before men could be quite sure that the suffering
of the Servant of the Lord, who figures as the subject of the
exilic prophet's dream, had been the symbol of something in the
very heart of God himself.

"FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE THIRD DEGREE"
by
W.Bro.C.H. BLAKE, P.M., Lodge No. 5279.

The first part of my talk, lasting almost to the interval, will
consist largely of introductions.

My first introduction is to explain why I am giving this talk. 
As many of you will remember, I read to you some time ago the
four talks that I gave to my Lodge as Worshipful Master.  I then
said quite frankly that I had not the knowledge to give the
intellectual talk that the Dormer Circle had every right to
expect, but that I thought you might be interested in the kind of
talk that can be put over to the brethren in an ordinary Lodge. 
When I handed that paper to the Editorial Officer I included with
it the copy of a talk on the Second Degree that I had given in
Lodge and of one on the Two Pillars which I was prepared to give
when required.  These were included in Transaction No. 78 which
members have already received.  At the same time I handed in a
copy of a talk on the Third Degree which I was going to give to a
Lodge of Instruction.  That talk was not included in Transaction
No. 78.  Imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago I was asked to
make that talk the subject of today's lecture, with sufficient
additions to make it suitable for another Transaction.  I repeat
that I have not the knowledge to go on adding and adding to my
basic ideas on Freemasonry.  The additions may seem to be rather
in the nature of "padding", but if, at the end of this session,
you feel that the padding has been worth while, then I need not
apologize for the fact that such additions may not be exclusively
related to the Third Degree.

My second introduction is to explain the nature of some of my
sources.  Owing to the peculiarity of the constitution of
"Dormer", it would be but right to put first the "Meaning of
Masonry" by Wor. Bro. Wilmshurst.  A very close second however is
Transaction No. 56, "The Quest Motive" by our Wor.Bro. President,
a transaction which I earnestly commend members to re-read and
visitors to purchase.  But a lot of the so-called padding comes
from the books of Troward, particularly, " Bible Mystery and
Bible Meaning". Until quite recently I had always assumed that
his books were out of print

Troward was a Britisher, who became a divisional judge in the
Punjab, so combining Western and Eastern thought.  He first
became interested in Mental Science by a ghost story which he
relates in one of his books and of which I will give you the
outline.  On a certain occasion he and his wife moved into a
bungalow that had once been occupied by a previous Assistant
Commissioner.  They had their beds taken into a certain room and
both settled down to read.  Troward, feeling drowsy, extinguished
his light and went to sleep, to be awakened by the sound of a
shot.  He relit his light and saw his wife, still sitting up in
bed, with her book open in front of her; but her light was out
and she was extremely frightened.  She refused to explain
anything until they had had their beds removed to another room. 
She then said that while she was reading, a man, whose
description she gave, stood by her side, leaned over her, and
said, "Do not be afraid" and there was the sound of a shot which
extinguished her light.  She was certain she had seen a ghost;
Troward was equally certain that she had been dreaming, though he
admitted he had been awakened by the sound of a shot which,
however, he insisted had come from outside.  They agreed to
differ and eventually went to sleep.  The next morning an old
lady paid them a call in order to enquire how they had seetled
down on their first night in the bungmow.  Naturally she was told
the story and she exclaimed: Isn't that amazing! Some years ago
when I was lying very ill in bed in the same position as your
wife's bed last night, my husband, the Assistant Commissioner,
whose description has been correctly given by your wife, came
into the room, leaned over the bed, and said 'Do not be afraid'
and shot himself."

That incident aroused in Troward a desire to investigate all the
ghost stories that he could.  We can assume that, being a judge,
he had no little skill in sifting evidence.  He became convinced
of the existence of ghosts: that led him to the study of Mental
Science: Mental Science applied, as he applied it, to religion,
becomes Spiritual Science and Masonry is Spiritual Science.

I was first introduced to the books of Troward as an officer
prisoner of war in Germany in 1917. I emphasise officer, not for
any snobbish reason, but because, as some of you may know, as an
officer I had no compulsory labour to perform.  Instead of
playing endless games of cards or walking ceaselessly round and
round inside barbed-wire enclosures, I was able to devote hours a
day to reading.  I digested those books as far as my mental
capacity would allow and continued to read them at intervals
until I became a mason nearly 20 years later.  There is to the
best of my recollection no direct allusion to masonry in "Bible
Mystery and Bible Meaning". When I was initiated, I was as much
in the dark as I assume most of you were; but my darkness
persisted.  Apart from the social and fraternal side of the
Lodge, I was extremely disappointed and when, some three years
later, I was compulsorily evacuated and unable to attend my Lodge
for five or six years, I had no feelings of any great loss.  At
the first meeting I attended after that period, I was asked to
accept the office of J.W. for the ensuing year.  In spite of
certain misgivings, I felt it was too spontaneous an offer and
too great an honour to refuse.  Shortly afterwards I took from a
shelf my copy of the "Meaning of Masonry" and began to re-read
it.  Suddenly the light dawned: suddenly I realised that all the
ideas I had absorbed from Troward were essentially masonic.  I
then decided that if and when I became W.M. I would endeavour to
explain to the brethren the basic principles of Freemasonry;
arguing that if I, with all the advantages I have just related to
you, could not see the meaning at a glance, how could the
ordinary brother, with little leisure and perhaps less interest,
be expected to see it.  Such was the origin of the four talks.

My third and last introduction is a revision of something I said
last time.  To me, the first outstanding important milestone in
the meaning of masonry is the closing in the Second Degree.  You
remember that the two Wardens tell the W.M. that they have
discovered the S .... d S .... I in the centre of the building. 
The building is the Lodge: you, as an individual, are the Lodge:
the three principal officers represent your three mental
faculties - the Physical or Conscious Mind, the Psychical or
Sub-Conscious Mind, the Spiritual, the very Essence of Mind. 
You, as an individual, have therefore at that stage realised the
existence of God in you and that realisation occurs after you
have understood the meaning of the Pillars and at the symbolic
age of 12.  In other words, you have now realised that B . . z
symbolises the existence of God in a universal sense, that J ....
n symbolises the existence of God in you in an individual sense
and that such realisation occurs after you have been through the
seven symbolic years as an E.A. and the five symbolic years as a
F.C. I am no authority on the spiritual meaning of numbers, but I
think I know enough to realise that such a meaning exists.  To
me, the essential meaning of "12" is that it marks the end of a
phase and the beginning of a higher phase developing from the
earlier one.  May I give you two examples from the V. of the
S.L., one from the New and one from the Old Testament.  When
Christ was at the symbolic age of 12, he was found learnedly
discoursing with the doctors in the Temple.  On being rebuked, he
said to his mother: "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business?" Granted that a Jew achieves maturity at the age of 12,
but that is only the surface meaning.  Christ had reached the end
of boyhood; he now stood on the brink of higher developments.  We
know nothing more until at the symbolic age of 30 he began his
ministry.  Almost immediately he chose 12 disciples, for knowing
that his time was short, he wanted them to continue the work
after his death.

From the Old Testament we have the example of Jacob and his 12
sons.  They went to Egypt and in due course, with the slight
modification that every Bible student knows, those 12 sons became
the 12 tribes of Israel.  The whole of the rest of the Old
Testament is devoted to the historic, poetic and prophetic story
of Israel. Later I shall refer to the inner meaning of the word
"Israel", which will confirm the importance of what I'm now
saying, but for the moment I confine myself to the number 12. 
The five books of Moses end the introductory phase: the 12 sons
of Jacob lead to the higher phase, the story of the development
in a certain race of the knowledge of God.

The Second Degree culminates then in the realisation by the
individual that God is in him.  That knowledge leads to the
realisation that something is missing.  In the opening of the
Third Degree, the wardens tell the W.M. that they have lost
something.  In other words, you, with your mental faculties,
realise that you have lost something and the inference is, that
owing to that loss, you have come from the East, you are in the
West and that as you recover from that loss, you will proceed
from the West back again to the East.

What have you lost? You have lost your sense of spiritual values. 
Again may I give you two examples, one from the New and one from
the Old Testament. From the New we have the story of the Prodigal
Son, who, asking for his share of the inheritance, went to a
distant land and spent it.  He then realised that he was worse
off than the meanest servant in his father's household, and
returned home.  Brethren, we are all prodigal sons: we have all,
though we have no conscious recollecton of it, asked for our
share of the inheritance, which we have received in full measure
- the wonderful physical body we possess and the marvellous
Nature by which we are surrounded.  We have all, in varying
degrees, wasted our substance in riotous living: most of us and
in theory all masons, have realised our lack of spiritual light. 
As all initiates do, we have turned our back on the West and have
proceeded towards the East.

The second exanmple from the Old Testarnent & the story of the
Garden of Eden.  The picture of Adam and Eve before the so-called
Fall is the ideal as ever present in the mind of God.  Apparently
that ideal cannot be realised without the experience and
education afforded by life in this world and perhaps in many
other spheres.  It is necessary to give a thing a name in order
to know what we are talking about and in that sense the story is
generally referred to as the Fall or the Great Catastrophe.  If,
however, such a name is meant to indicate that God has made a
mistake or that something has happened contrary to his plan, then
I must entirely disassociate myself from such an explanation.  If
the name of God as given to Moses - "I am that I am" - means
anything, it is a statement of "being" in the absolute. "I am " -
the present tense of the verb "to be": no past, no future, no
time, no space, no conditions, but an ever-present reality.  If
such is the nature of God, nothing can ever happen of which he is
unaware.

What was the nature of the so-called Fall? Adam and Eve,
representatives of humanity, tasted the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.  To me, the essential key is good AND
evil.  Brethren, in the sphere of the Absolute, there is no such
thing as evil. To say that there is no evil in this relative
existence of ours would be to deny what our common sense tells
us, but that is a very different thing from recognising evil as
having a substantive existence of its own.  If evil had such a
substantive existence, it would be equal with good, would cancel
it out and leave nothing.  That is precisely what the V. of the
S.L. is constantly warning us about: "There is ONE God": "Thou
shalt not LIMIT the Holy One of Israel." The Israelites were the
chosen people, not because of any favouritism, which is absurd,
but precisely because, on the whole and thanks to a succession of
remarkable teachers, they did realise that ultimate fact.

Religion deals with the Absolute: Science deals with the
Relative: there is no necessary clash between them if that
essential difference is realised.  In that connection I would
strongly recommend two books by Gerald Heard: "Is God evident?"
and "Is God in history?" both of which are in the Circle's
library. I do not recommend the books as literature, but I do
recommend, particularly the second one, as a genuine attempt to
bring modern scientific thought into line with the "Tradition".

As most of you know, it is part of the "Tradition that, long
before the dawn of history, man was not the savage he is so often
thought to have been.  You may remember H. G. Wells' "Outline of
History", produced in parts between the two wars, and the
fiendish pictures given of early man.  I have read somewhere that
before his death H. G. Wells realised and regretted the mistake
he had made.  It is now believed by a number of intelligent
investigators - and their knowledge is based largely on modern
psychological developments - that, before the period of wars,
kings and heroes immortalised by Homer, man was a peaceful,
social individual, with far greater psychic powers than most of
us possess today.  Gerald Heard has endeavoured to trace the fall
of man - i.e. his increased capacity for evil - from those early
prehistoric times to the days of the early civilisations.

Some of you probably saw some weeks ago a televised play called
"Madeleine".  I did not see it, but came home as the play was
finishing and my wife said how interesting it was.  A little
later we were thinking of going away for a few days, so I went
into our local "Boots" library to choose a book for holiday
reading.

As you know, the books are arranged under alphabetical names of
authors.  As I did not know that there was a book called
"Madeleine ", I could hardly have known its author.  Yet the
first book I picked from the shelf had that title and on turning
over the pages, I saw that it was a secret service story - in
fact, the story of the play my wife had seen.  It is enormously
difficult to distinguish between coincidence and conditions
produced by thought.  All I can say is that when as a J.W. I
picked up the "Meaning of Masonry", my mind for some time had
been dwelling on my ignorance of that meaning and when I picked
up the book "Madeleine", I had for some time been concentrating
on this problem of good and evil. Madeleine was of Indian royal
blood; her father was the recognised leading teacher in the West
of Sufi mysticism.  He had been advised by his teacher to marry a
Western wife in order to combine the virtues of both worlds.  He
went to America and married a Miss Baker, a close relative of
that Miss Baker who became Mrs. Eddy of Christian Science fame. 
Madeleine was their eldest child.  She was born in the Kremlin -
though I do not suggest that that is important - and shortly
afterwards, just prior to the outbreak of the 1914 war, the
family moved to England, where they stayed till 1924.  They then
went to France, where they stayed till the fall of France in
1940.  Thus Madeleine spent her first 10 years in England and the
next 16 in France.  On her return to England, she was almost
completely bilingual, one of the qualifications the Secret
Service required.  She joined the W.A.A.F. from where she
received her call to the Secret Service and eventually paid the
supreme penalty.  Everywhere she went - in England, France and
Germany everybody spoke of her saintly qualities, which brings me
to the reason for telling you all this.  Most of us know
something of the roughness of life in the Services and her
brother was very perturbed when she joined the W.A.A.F. because
as he said: "Madeleine has no knowledge of evil: it is as if she
had not fallen." You can imagine how that remark literally hit me
in the eye, in view of the thoughts I was then thinking. 
Doubtless you have all met one of those rare persons whose very
presence seems to uplift you.  Doubtless the real saints - not
necessarily the canonised ones - must have had that influence on
their contemporaries.  Most of you have read "The Robe". You may
or may not like the theme, but you cannot deny that it gives a
marvellous picture, however imaginative it may be, of the
influence of the personality of Christ on those with whom he
associated.  Whether or not there is any human being who has not
fallen is not for me to say, but I have endeavoured to illustrate
how the so-called Fall means the acceptance of evil as something
real, which thereby involves a lessening of the spiritual values
and brings us back to the masonic statement that we have lost
something.

The most disinterested M.M. will tell you that the Third Degree
is the story of the murder of H.A. Who was H.A.? At the building
of King Solomon's Temple mention is made of Solomon, King of
Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre and Hiram the Architect, a widow's
son of the tribe of Napthali.  Despite the fact that in one part
of the ritual we are all called "Sons of the Widow", which has an
explanation quite apart from the present theme, I insist that
Hiram the architect of Solomon's temple was not H.A. I will give
you two reasons: the first-there is no suggestion or mention of
the murder of Hiram in the V. of the S.L.: to which you can reply
that the V. of the S.L. cannot give all details of all events. 
The second reason, however, should be convincing: Solomon's
temple was completed, but the masonic temple, owing to the death
of H.A. is incomplete. I will go so far as to say that if you
think the real meaning of masonry has anything whatsoever to do
with Solomon's Temple you have missed the whole point.  Solomon's
Temple is used as a symbol for the Temple of Man and it is
interesting to note that when, in the lecture on the first
tracing board, mention is made of Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram,
King of Tyre, and H.A., they are immediately symbolised as
Wisdom, Strength and Beauty.  We are then faced with this
comparatively simple problem: who is it that is interested in the
incomplete building of the Temple of Man and who can also be
represented as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty? There can be only one
answer for the mason: it is God, represented as a trinity of
virtues.  No wonder that H.A. could not disclose the secrets
without the consent and cooperation of the other two, for he with
the other two formed the Trinity!

There are many ways of thinking of God as a Trinity the Christian
explanation is one way but by no means the only way.  Let us
consider the Old Testament way.  If there is one statement that
is repeated over and over again in the Old Testament, it is that
God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Abraham contains the
syllable "RA", the name of the Egyptian male god of the sun.  The
change of name from Abram to Abraham emphasises that masculine
principle.  Read the life of Abraham from that masculine point of
view: you find that he is the father of many nations, that his
seed will fill the earth.  Abraham symbolises the creative, the
paternal, the masculine nature of God.  Isaac contains the
syllable "IS", the female god of the moon, emphasised in Isis and
still more in Assyria. Read the life of Isaac from that feminine
point of view: his very name is connected with the laughter of
his mother his wife Rebecca had a dominating influence over him
he was ready to be sacrificed; he went into the field at eventide
to meditate.  Isaac symbolises the formative, the maternal, the
feminine nature of God.  Jacob, as I explained in the talk on the
Two Pillars, is the same root as Jachin and means the ONE, which
can be taken as the individual or the spiritual or as the
individual becoming the spiritual.  His life, until his wrestling
with the angel, symbolised the individual aspect: after the
wrestling, with the change of name to Israel, it symbolised the
spiritual aspect. To affirm that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob is to recognise God as father, mother and the resulting
individual, or as creative, formative and the resulting
individual, or as Body, Soul and Spirit or as physical, psychical
and spiritual.  The very name Israel contains IS, RA and EL, the
latter being a Hebrew element denoting "THE", which can be taken
as individual or universal, so that Israel is the three in one
and a real Israelite is one who has recognised that trinity, one
who realises that in the individual is the spiritual and that the
individual's greatest and only really worthwhile task is to
develop the spiritual nature.  Give that meaning to an Israelite
throughout the V. of the S.L. and you get a flood of meaning and
you also come right back to masonry.  The W.M. in the Lodge,
having been both J. and S.W. combines in himself the Physical,
Psychical and Spiritual; he is the symbol of the individual who
has developed his spirituality; he is Jacob who has become
Israel.

Having recognised H.A. as part of the Trinity, we now have to
determine his function and that is indicated by the meaning of
his name - the teacher from the father. P.M.s know him also as
Adoniram, a name with essentially the same meaning - the
messenger from the Lord.  To use a Christian term, he is the
Christ principle, the self-sacrificial principle, which is by no
means limited to Christianity.  In practically every religious
system which has endured - and that includes the Mystery systems
- we find the self-sacrificial principle at work.  In Egypt in
Greece, in Phoenicia, in Rome, a god is torn to pieces and as a
result of his sacrificial death, initiates - not beginners as in
Freemasonry but those initiated into the secret doctrine - learn
how to live.  In Scandinavia, Baldur hangs himself on a tree and
in Britain, King Arthur, mortally wounded, disappears with a
promise of return.  Christians have every right to see in Jesus
Christ the supreme and perfect example of that principle, but in
my opinion they have no right to insist on it in a masonic
assembly containing non-Christians. That is what I understand by
the statement in the Charge that you are to abstain from every
topic of religious discussion in the Lodge.  You cannot
understand the real meaning of masonry without introducing
religion, but you must not limit it to one religion, whatever
your private views may be.  In a so-called Christian country I am
perfectly justified in giving examples from the New Testament, as
I have done on several occasions this afternoon.  If I were
attending a lecture, similar to this given in the East, I should
expect the lecturer to illustrate the masonic principles by
reference to Krishna, Buddha, Mahomet or other world famous
examples.  On the other hand, I would strongly advise masonic
non-Christians to read the epistles of St. Paul, substituting, if
they so desire, H.A. for Christ and they would obtain a wealth of
deep masonic knowledge, for St. Paul was, in his own words, a
steward of the mysteries of God.

The next question we have to answer is how H.A. was murdered. 
Again every M.M. knows the answer because every M.M. has
symbolically been through the same process; but to go through the
motions is not necessarily to understand the meaning.  H.A. was
murdered with the plumb-rule, level and square, for the heavy
maul is not a working-tool, nowhere is it explained as such: it
was substituted for the square for greater dramatic effect.  The
Plumb-rule, Level and Square, however, represent the three
principal officers and the three principal officers represent the
three mental faculties of each and every one of us.  We now
realise then that H.A. was not murdered by three principal but
unknown conspirators: he was murdered by each of us.  We have all
by the wrong use of our mental faculties, i.e., by wrong
thinking, murdered the master.  When we give the sign of h ....
r, we are aghast at  what we have done; when we give the sign of
s...... y, we are sorry for what we have done; when we give the p
... I sign we acknowledge that without the centre, we cannot
atone for our crime.  Though the superficial meaning of the
penalties may be a punishment for disobeying certain promises,
the real meaning is that if we do not use our mental faculties
correctly, we must use them incorrectly, which amounts to the
spiritual loss of such faculties.  A good mason uses his head for
conscious reasoning, his symbolic heart for emotional and pyschic
reasoning, his symbolic centre for spiritual reasoning.  His
failure to use them properly results in his symbolic deprivation
of them.  The penalties, crude as they may seem, go to the very
head, heart and centre of the problem.

Yet we return to the East by means of the Plumb-rule, Level and
Square, in other words, we return to the East by the correct use
of the very same tools by whose incorrect use we murdered the
master.  Could anything be plainer once the symbolism is
explained? By wrong thinking we leave the East and go to the
West; by right thinking we leave the West and return to the East. 
By wrong thinking the Prodigal Son left his home; by right
thinking he returned to it.  By wrong thinking Adam and Eve,
i.e., humanity, left the Garden of Eden; by right thinking they
will return to it.

We all know the famous lines of St. Paul - "Whatsoever thngs are
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue and
if there be any praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS " (Philippians Ch. 
IV, v. 8).

Perhaps we all do not know one of Tennyson's lesser known poems -
"The Ancient Sage". May I advise you to read it or to reread it. 
It contains one of Tennyson's famous semi-sceptical lines -
"Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt": it contains also some
of Tennyson's deepest thought.  It contains, for example, the
poetic statement of a condition which Tennyson experienced and
which is confirmed, I believe, by Tennyson's son in writing his
father's biography.  It is the condition of losing touch with his
individuality and experiencing a much vaster life - "and through
loss of self, the gain of such large life as matched with ours
were sun to spark" with which I can compare a quotation from
Troward - "We come into touch with the Absolute in proportion as
we withdraw ourselves from the Relative." The main reason,
however, for mentioning the poem is that it terminates with a
passage beginning: "Think well, do well will follow thought",
which seems to summarise what I have been trying to say.

We come now to our last question - "Where was H.A. buried?" We
know the answer from the ritual - in a grave from the Centre
three feet East, from the Centre three feet West, from the Centre
three feet North, from the Centre three feet South, and five feet
or more perpendicular - the height of the average man.  H.A. is
buried in the centre of each individual, but he remains dormant
until the individual adopts the cruciform posture.  Far be it
from me to suggest that posture is of no importance, but the
adoption of the cruciform posture is meant to symbolise the inner
adoption of the cruciform principle.  The symbol of the Cross is
by no means limited to Christianity: long before the time of
Christ, the Cross was used as the sacrificial symbol. The three
working tools put together form the Cross, a cube unfolds into a
Cross.  On the J.W.'s pedestal is the rough ashir - a cube - a
hidden Cross: on the S.W.'s pedestal is the perfect ashlar - a
cube - a hidden Cross.  From so many different angles the Third
Degree brings us back to the centre, to the vital and immortal
principle, dormant in all men, active in those who do the will of
the Father.  Almost all forms of doing, in the really deep sense
of the word, involve some form of self-sacrifice: not necessarily
the self-sacrifice that leads to physical death, noble as that
may be, but the self-sacrifice that leads to the death of the
lower self. The true mason, physically alive, able and willing to
continue the good work in this life, can gaze upon the skull and
crossbones of his dead lower self.

To put into practice the real meaning of the Third Degree is to
meet enormous opposition from the lower self, but we read "To him
that overcometh will I give - a New Name", Revelation, Ch. III,
v. 12.  To Companions, to Kabbalists, there is no virtue in the
discovery of a name; the virtue is in the overcoming and then the
New Name becomes part of you, whether you are Companion, Jew or
anyone else.  It is generally agreed that the specially personal
name of God is Jehovah.  We read in Exodus, Ch.  VI, v. 3, that
God revealed himself to Moses by the name Jehovah.  The Bible
however contains no other statement of such a revelation except
at the Burning Bush.  There should then be a connection between
Jehovah and the I AM.  Not being a Hebrew scholar, I cannot
pretend to analyse the word Jehovah, but I am led to understand
that the first part of the name suggests essential life
manifesting itself as derived life and the second part suggests a
plurality of derived lives connected by some common link.  The
whole name thus represents Universal Life which is over all,
through all and in all and combined with the statement that God
is ONE, indicates the Unity of Spirit from which all
individualities proceed and in which they are all included.  That
name was revealed at the Burning Bush assuming that "bush"
symbolises "matter" and "fire", "spirit", we have once more the
symbolism of the union of Spirit and Matter.

We see then that Jehovah and the I AM, two names given to God,
both mean in essence the same thing. Doubtless other names given
to God in the sacred writings would lead to the same conclusion
and we thus realise that the scriptures, including the mystery
religions and masonry, deal with general principles.  The secret
consists in the realisation of your own essential being, of the
vital and immortal principle, of the Centre; the method consists
in the veiled symbolism of the Third Degree; the result is the
establishment of the Fifth or Spiritual Kingdom.  Through the
Kingdoms of mineral, vegetable, animal and human, God has worked
as an impersonal force, intent apparently only on the survival of
the race - as Tennyson says, speaking of nature in "In Memoriam"

"So careful of the type, she seems, So careless of the single
life."

In the Fourth or human Kingdom, has been manifested, created,
evolved - call it what you will - an individual with an
intelligence capable of understanding the law that has brought
him to his present stage.  In the lecture on the first Tracing
Board, we are told that there is a point within a circle round
which the brethren cannot err: this circle is bounded between
north and south by two grand parallel lines, the one representing
Moses, the other King Solomon.  Moses represents Law: Solomon
represents Wisdom.  We travel round the circle, often oblivious
of the centre and we are subject to laws that are infinite. 
Every time we disobey the law, deliberately or through ignorance,
some form of punishment ensues.  We are now however intelligent
enough to realise that within us we have infinite wisdom, which
helps us to understand the working of the law, so that by using
the law, we can go on from strength to strength.  Such
individuals can find God in a personal sense, not only in nature
around them but in their own nature within them.

"And Spirit with Spirit can meet;

Closer is he than breathing and nearer than hands and feet."

(The Higher Pantheism-Tennyson).

Such individuals are helping to form the Spiritual Kingdom by a
process of "becoming" that involves "overcoming" and "to him that
overcometh will I give a New Name."