SOME DEEPER ASPECTS OF MASONIC SYMBOLISM
                   BY BRO. AURTHUR EDWARD WAITE

                              PART I
THE subject which I am about to approach is one having certain obvious
difficulties, because it is outside the usual horizon of Masonic
literature, and requires, therefore, to be put with considerable care,
as well as with reasonable prudence. Moreover, it is not easy to do it
full justice within the limits of a single lecture. I must ask my
Brethren to make allowance beforehand for the fact that I am speaking
in good faith, and where the evidence for what I shall affirm does not
appear in its fullness, and sometimes scarcely at all, they must
believe that I can produce it at need, should the opportunity occur.
As a matter of fact, some part of it has appeared in my published
writings.
    I will introduce the question in hand by a citation which is
familiar to us all, as it so happens that it forms a good point of
departure:- "But as we are not all operative Masons, but rather Free
and Accepted or speculative, we apply these tools to our morals." With
certain variations, these words occur in each of the Craft Degrees,
and their analogies are to be found in a few subsidiary Degrees which
may be said tO arise out of the Craft- as, for example, the Honorable
Degree of Mark Master Mason. That which is applied more specially to
the working implements of Masonry belongs to our entire building
symbolism, whether it is concerned with the erection by the Candidate
in his own personality of an ediflce or "superstructure perfect in its
parts and honorable to the builder," or, in the Mark Degree, with a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, or again with
Solomon's Temple spiritualized in the Legend of the Master Degree.

                        A SYSTEM OF MORALITY
    It comes about in this manner that Masonry is descubed elsewhere
as "a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated
by symbols." I want to tell you, among other things which call for
consideration, something about the nature of the building, as this is
presented to my mind, and about the way in which allegory, symbols and
drama all hang together and make for one meaning. It is my design also
to show that Craft Masonry incorporates three less or more distinct
elements which have been curiously interlinked under the device of 
symbolical architecture. That interlinking is to some extent
artificial, and yet it arises logically, so far as the relation of
ideas is concerned.
    There is, firstly, the Candidate's own work, wherein he is taught
how he should build himself. The method of instruction is practical
within its own measures, but as it is so familiar and open, it is not,
properly speaking, the subject-matter of a Secret Order. There is,
secondly, a  building myth, and the manner in which it is put forward
involves the Candidate taking part in a dramatic scene, wherein he
represents the master-builder of Masonry. There is, thirdly, a Masonic
quest, connected with the notion of a Secret Word communicated as an
essential part of the Master-Degree in building. This is perhaps the
most important and strangest of the three elements; but the quest
after the Word is not finished in the Third Degree.

                         THE FIRST DEGREE
    Let us look for a moment at the Degree of Entered Apprentice, and
how things stand with the Candidate when he first comes within the
precincts of the Lodge. He comes as one who is "worthy and well
recommended," as if he contained within himself certain elements or
materials which are adaptable to a specific purpose. He is described
by his conductor as a person who is "properly prepared." The fitness
implied by the recommendation has reference to something which is
within him, but not of necessity obvious or visible on his surface
personality. It is not that he is merely a deserving member of society
at large. He is this, of course, by the fact that he is admitted; but
he is very much more, because Masonry has an object in view respecting
his personahty- something that can be accomplished in him as a result
of his fellowship in the Brotherhood, and by himself. As a matter of
truth, it is by both. The "prepared" state is, however, only external,
and all of us know in what precisely it consists.

    Now the manner of his preparation for entrance into the Lodge
typifies a state which is peculiar to his inward position as a person
who has not been initiated. There are other particulars into which I
need not enter, but it should be remarked that in respect of his
preparation he learns only the meaning of the state of darkness,
namely, that he has not yet received the light communicated in
Masonry. The significance of those hindrances which place him at a
disadvantage, impede his movements, and render him in fact helpless,
is much deeper than this. They constitute together an image of coming
out from some old condition by being unclothed therefrom- partially at
least- and thereafter of entering into a condition that is new and
different, in which another kind of light is commumcated, and another
vesture is to be assumed, and, ultimately, another life entered.

                     THE MEANING OF INITIATION
    In the first Degree the Candidate's eyes are opened into the
representation of a new world, for you must know, of course, that the
Lodge itself is a symbol of the world, extending to the four corners,
having the height of heaven above and the great depth beneath. The
Candidate may think naturally that light has been taken away from him
for the purpose of his initiation, has been thereafter restored
automatically, when he has gone through a part of the ceremony, and
that hence he is only returned to his previous position. Not so. In
reality, the light is restored to him in another place; he has put
aside old things, has come into things that are new; and he will never
pass out of the Lodge as quite the same man that he entered. There is
a very true sense in which the particulars of his initiation are in
analogy with the process of birth into the physical world. The imputed
darkness of his previous existence, amidst the life of the uninitiated
world, and the yoke which is placed about him is unquestionably in
correspondence with the umbilical cord. You will remember the point at
which he is released therefrom- in our English ritual, I mean. I do
not wish to press this view, because it belongs of right, in the main,
to another region of symbolism, and the procedure in the later Degrees
confuses an issue which might be called clear otherwise in the Degree
of Entered Apprentice. It is preferable to say that a new light- being
that of Masonry- illuminates the world of the Lodge in the midst of
which the Candidate is placed; he is penetrated by a fresh experience;
and he sees things as they have never been presented to him before.
When he retires subsequently for a period, this is like his
restoration to light; in the literal. sense he resumes that which he
set aside, as he is restored to the old light; but in the symbolism it
is another environment, a new body of motive, experience, and sphere of
duty attached thereto. He assumes a new vocation in the world.
    The question of certain things of a metallic kind, the absence of
which plays an important part, is a little difficult from any point of
view, though several, explanations have been given. The better way
toward their understanding is to put aside what is conventional and
arbitrary- as, for example, the poverty of spirit and, the denuded
state of those who have not yet been enriched by the secret knowledge
of the Royal and Holy Art. It goes deeper than this and represents the
ordinary status of the world, when separated from any higher motive-
the world-spirit, the extrinsic titles of recognition, the material
standards. The Candidate is now to learn that there is another
standard of values, and when he comes again into possession of the old
tokens, he is to realize that their most important use is in the cause
of others. You know under what striking circumstances this point is
brought home to him.

                      ENTERED, PASSED, RAISED
    The Candidate is, however, subjected to like personal experience
in each of the Craft Degrees, and it calls to be understood thus. In
the Entered Apprentice Degree it is because of a new life which he is
to lead henceforth. In the Fellowcraft, it is as if the mind were to be
renewed, for the prosecution of researd into the hidden mysteries of
nature, science, and art. But in the sublime Degree of Master Mason it
is ir order that he may enter fully into the mystery of death and of
that which follows thereafter, being the greai mystery of the Raising.
The three technical and official words corresponding to the successive
experiences are Entered, Passed, and Raised, their Craft-equivalents
being Apprentice, Craftsman and Master- or he who has undertaken to
acquire the symbolical and spiritualized art of building the house of
another life; he who has passed therein to a certain point of
proficiency, and in fine, he who has attained the whole mystery. If I
may use for a moment the imagery of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, he
has learned how to effectuate in his own personality "a new birth in
time," to wear a new body of desire, intention and purpose; he has
fitted to that body a new mind,and other objects of research. In fine,
he has been taught how to lay it aside, and yet again he has been
taught how to take it up after a different manner, in the midst of a
very strange symbolism.

                        IMPERFECT SYMBOLISM
    Now, it may be observed that in delineating these intimations of
our symbolism, I seem already to have departed from the mystery of
building with which I opened the conference; but I have, been actually
considering various sidelights thereon. It may be understood, further,
that I am not claiming to deal with a symbolism that is perfect in all
its pats, however honorable it may be otherwise to the builder. In the
course of such researches as I have been enabled to make into the
Instituted Mysteries of different ages and countries, I have never met
with one which was in entire harmony with itself. We must be content
with what we have, just as it is necessary to tolerate the peculiar
conventions of language under which the Craft Degrees have passed into
expression, artificial and sometimes commonplace as they are. Will you
observe once again at this stage how it is only in the first Degree
that the Candidate is instructed to build upon his own part a
superstructure which is somehow himself? This symbolism is lost
completely in the ceremony of the Fellowcraft Degree, which, roughly
speaking, is something of a Degree of Life; the symbols being more
especially those of conduct and purpose, while in the Third Degree,
they speak of direct relations between man and his Creator, giving
intimation of judgment to come.

                      THE THIRD DEGREE
    I have said, and you know, that the Master Degree is one of death
and resurrection of a certain kind, and among its remarkable
characteristics there is a return to building symbolism, but this time
in the form of a legend. It is no longer an erection of the
Candidate's own house- house of the body, house of the mind, and house
of the moral law. We are taken to the Temple of Solomon and are told
how the Master-Builder suffered martyrdom rather than betray the
mysteries which had been placed in his keeping. Manifestly, the lesson
which is drawn in the Degree is a veil of something much deeper, and
about which there is no real intimation. It is assuredly an
instruction for the Candidates that they must keep the secrets of the
Masonic Order secretly, but such a covenant has reference only to the
official and external side. The bare recitation of the legend would
have been sufficient to enforce this; but observe that the Candidate
assumes the part of the Master-Builder and suffers within or in him-
as a testimony of personal faith and honor in respect to his
engagements. But thereafter he rises, and it is this which gives a
peculiar characteristic to the descriptive title of the Degree. It is
one of raising and of reunion with companions- almost as if he had
been released from earthly life and had entered into the true Land of
the Living. The keynote is therefore not one of dying but one of
resurrection; and yet it is not said in the legend that the Master
rose. The point seems to me one of considerable importance, and yet I
know not of a single place in our literature wherein it has received
consideration. I will leave it, however, for the moment, but with the
intention of returning to it.

---

                              PART II
THERE are two ways in which the Master Degree may be thought to lapse
from perfection in respect of its symbohsm, and I have not taken out a
license to represent it as of absolute order in these or in any
respects. This has been practically intimated already. Perhaps it is
by the necessity of things that it has recourse always to the lesser
meaning, for it is this which is more readily understood. On the other
hand, much must be credited to its subtlety, here and there, in the
best sense of the term.  There is something to be said for an allegory
which he who runs may read, at least up to a certain point. But those
who made the legend and the ritual could not have been unaware of that
which the deeper side shows forth; they have left us also the Opening
and Closing as of the great of all greatness- so it seems to me, my
Brethren- in things of ceremony and ritual. Both are devoid of
explanation, and it is for us to understand them as we can.
    For myself it is obvious that something distinct from the express
motives of Masonry has come to us in this idea of Raising. The
Instituted Mysteries of all ages and countries were concerned in the
figuration, by means of ritual and symbolism, of New Birth, a new
life, a mystic death and resurrection, as so many successive
experiences through which the Candidate passed on the way of his
inward progress from earthly to spiritual life, or from darkness to
light. The Ritual or Book of the Dead is a case in point. It has been
for a long period regarded by scholarship as intimating the after-
death experiences or adventures of the soul in the halls of judgment,
and so forth; but there are traces already of the genesis of a new
view, chiefly in the writing of Mr. W. Flinders Petrie, according to
which some parts at least of this great text are really a rite of
initiation and advancement, through which Candidates pass in this
life.

                       THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
    If I am putting this rather strongly as regards one important
authority, it is at least true to say that he appears to discern the
mystical side of the old Egyptian texts, while there are others, less
illustrious than he, who have gone much further in this direction. It
is very difficult for one like myself, although unversed in
Egyptology, to study such a work as "Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection," by E. Wallis Budge, without feeling very strongly that
there is much to be said for this view, or without hoping that it will
be carried further by those who are properly warranted.
    So far as it is possible to speak of the Kabiric Mysteries, there
was in those an episode of symbolical death, because Kasmillos, a
technical name ascribed to the Candidate, was represented as slain by
the gods. Some of the rites which prevailed within and around Greece
in ancient times are concerned with the idea of a regeneration or new
birth. The Mysteries of Bacchus depicted the death of this god and his
restoration to light as Rhea. Osiris died and rose, and so also did
Adonis. He was first lamented as dead and then his revivification was
celebrated with great joy. There is no need, however, to multiply the
recurrence of these events in the old Mysteries nor to restrict
ourselves within their limits, for all religions have testified to the
necessity of regeneration and have administered it's imputed
processes. That which is most important- from my point of view- is the
testimony belonging to Christian times and the secret tradition
therein.

                       THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES
    Of course, to speak of this it is necessary to trend on subjects
which at the present are excluded, and very properly so, from
discussion in a Craft Lodge, when they are presented from a religious
and doctrinal angle. I shall not treat them from that standpoint, but
rather as a sequence of symbolism in the form of dramatic mystery,
alluding slightly, and from a philosophical point of view only, to the
fact that in certain schools they are regarded as delineating
momentous experiences in the history and life of man's soul. That new
birth which conferred upon the Eleusinian mystae the title of
Regenerated Children of the Moon- so that each one of them was
henceforth symbolically a Son of the Queen of Heaven- born as a man
originally and reborn in a divine manner- has its correspondence on a
much higher plane of symbolism with the Divine Birth in Bethlehem,
according to which a child was "born" and a son "given," who, in
hypothesis at least, was the Son of God, but Son also of Mary- one of
whose titles, according to Latin theology, is Queen of Heaven.
    The hidden life in Egypt and Nazareth corresponds to the life of
seclusion led by the mystae during their period of probation between
the Lesser and Greater Mysteries. The three years of ministry are in
analogy with the Temple-functions of the mystagogues. But lastly, in
Egypt and elsewhere, there was the mystic experience of the Pastos, in
which the initiate died symbolically; as Jesus died upon the Cross.
The Christian "Symbolum" says:- Descendit ad inferos: that is, "He
descended into hell"; and in the entranced condition of the Pastos,
the soul of the Postulant was held or was caused to wander in certain
spiritual realms. But in fine, it is said of Christ:- Tertia die
resurrexit; "the third day he rose again from the dead." So also the
Adept of the Greater Mysteries rose from the Pastos in the imputed
glory of an inward illumination.

                          THE MYSTICAL FACT
    There was a period not so long ago when these analogies were
recognized and applied to place a fabulous construction upon the
central doctrines of Christian religion, just as there was a period
when the solar mythology was adapted in the same direction. We have no
call to consider these aberrations of a partially digested learning;
but they had their excuses in their period. The point on which I would
insist is that in the symbolism of the old initiations, and in the
pageant of the Christian mythos, there is held to be the accurate
delineation of a mystical experience, the heads and sections of which
correspond to the notions of mystic birth, life, death and
resurrection. It is a particular formula which is illustrated
frequently in the mystic literature of the western world. Long before
symbolical Masonry had emerged above the horizon, several cryptic
texts of alchemy, in my understanding, were bearing witness to this
symbolism and to something real in experience which lay behind it. In
more formal Christian mysticism, it was not until the 16th century and
later that it entered into the fullest expression.
    Now, that which is formulated as mystic birth is comparable to a
dawn of spiritual consciousness. It is the turning of the whole life-
motive in the divine direction, so that, at a given tim- which is
actually the point of turning- the personality stands symbolically
between the East and the North, between the greatest zone of darkness
and that zone which is the source of light, looking towards the light-
source and realizing that the whole nature has to be renewed therein.
Mystic life is a quest of divine knowledge in a world that is within.
It is the life led in this light, progressing and developing therein,
as if a Brother should read the Mysteries of Nature and Science with
new eyes cast upon the record, which record is everywhere, but more
especially in his own mind and heart. It is the complete surrender to
the working of the divine, so that an hour comes when proprium meum et
tuum dies in the mystical sense, because it is hidden in God. In this
state, by the testimony of many literatures, there supervenes an
experience which is described in a thousand ways yet remains
ineffable. It has been enshrined in the imperishable books of Plato
and Plotinus. It glimmers forth at every turn and corner of the remote
roads and pathways of Eastern philosophies. It is in little books of
unknown authorship, treasured in monasteries and most of which have
not entered into knowledge, except within recent times.

                       THE PLACE OF DARKNESS
    The experience is in a place of darkness, where, in other
symbolism, the sun is said to shine at midnight. There is afterwards
that further state, in which the soul of man returns to the normal
physical estate, bringing the knowledge of another world, the quest
ended for the time being at least. This is compared to resurrection,
because in the aftermath of his experience the man is, as it were, a
new being. I have found in most mythological legends that the period
between divine death and resurrection was triadic and is spoken of
roughly as three days, though there is an exception is the case of
Osiris, whose dismemberment necessitated a long quest before the most
important of his organs was left finally lost. The three days are
usually foreshortened at both ends; the first is an evening, the
second a complete day, while the third ends at sunrise.  I is an
allusion to the temporal brevity ascribed in all literatures to the
culminating mystical experience. It is remarkable, in this connection,
that during the mystic death of the Candidate in the Third Degree, the
time of his interned condition is marked by three episodes, which are
so many attempts to raise him, the last only being successful.

                         OPERATIVE MASONRY
    Two things follow unquestionably from these considerations, so far
as they have proceeded. The interest in Operative Masonry and its
records, though historically it is of course important, has proceeded
from the beginning on a misconception as to the aims and symbolism of
Speculative Masonry. It was and it remains natural, and it has not
been without its results, but it is a confusion of the chief issues.
It should be recognized henceforward that the sole connection between
the two Arts and Crafts rests on the fact that the one has undertaken
to uplift the other from the material plane to that of morals on the
surface and of spirituality in the real intention. Many things led up
thereto, and a few of them were at work unconsciously within the
limits of Operative Masonry. At a period when there was a tendency to
symbolize everything roughly, so that it might receive a tincture of
religion- I speak of the Middle Ages- the duty of Apprentice to
Master, and of Master to pupil, had analogies with relations
subsisting between man and God, and they were not lost sight of in
those old Operative documents. Here was a rudiment capable of
indefinite extension. The placing of the Lodges and of the Craft at
large under notable patronage, and the subsequent custom of admitting
persons of influence, offered another and quite distinct opportunity.
These facts notwithstanding, my position is that the traces of
symbolism which may in a sense be inherent in Operative Masonry did
not produce, by a natural development, the Speculative Art and Craft,
though they helped undoubtedly to make a possible and partially
prepared field for the great adventure and experiment.

                           THE OLD CHARGES
    The second point is that we must take the highest intention of
symbolism in the Third Degree to some extent apart from the setting.
You will know that the literary history of our ritual is rather non-
existent than obscure, or if this is putting the case a little too
strongly, it remains that researches have so far left the matter in a
dubious position. The reason is not for our seeking, for the kind of
enquiry that is involved is one of exceeding difficulty. If I say that
it is my personal aspiration to undertake it one of these days, I
speak of what is perhaps a distant hope. That which is needed is a
complete codification of all the old copies, in what language soever,
which are scattered throughout the Lodges and libraries of the whole
Masonic world, together with an approximate determination of their
dates by expert evidence. In my opinion, the codices now in use have
their roots in the 18th century, but were edited and re-edited at an
even later date.

    I have now brought before you in somewhat disjointed manner- as I
cannot help feeling- several independent considerations, each of
which, taken separately, institutes certain points of correspondence
between Masonry and other systems of symbolism, but they do not at
present enter into harmony. I will collect them as follows:-
    (1) Masonry has for its object, under one aspect, the building of
the Candidate as a house or temple of life. Degrees outside the Craft
aspire to this building as a living stone in a spiritual temple, meet
for God's service.
    (2) Masonry presents also a symbolical sequence, but in a somewhat
crude manner, of Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection, which other
systems indicate as a mystery of experience.
    (3) Masonry, in fine, represents the whole body of its Adepti as
in search of something that has been lost, and it tells us how and
with whom that loss came about.
    These are separate and independent lines of symbolism, though, as
indicated already, they are interlinked by the fact of their
incorporation in Craft Masonry, considered as a unified system. But
the truth is that between the spiritual building of the First Degree
and the Legend of Solomon's Temple there is so little essential
correspondence that the one was never intended to lead up to the
other. The symbolism of the Entered Apprentice Degree is of the
simplest and most obvious kind; it is also personal and
individualistic. That of the Master Degree is complex and remote in
its significance; it is, moreover, an universal mythos. I have met
with some searchers of the mysteries who seem prepared to call it
cosmic, but I must not carry you so far as this speculation would lead
us, and I do not hold a brief for its defense. I am satisfied in my
own mind that the Third Degree has been grafted on the others and does
not belong to them. There has been no real attempt to weld them, but
they have been drawn into some kind of working sequence by the
Exhortation which the Worshipful Master recites prior to the dramatic
scene in the last Master Degree. To these must be added some remarks
to the Candidate immediately after the Raising. The Legend is reduced
therein to the uttermost extent possible in respect of its meaning,
though it is possible that this has been done of set purpose.

                           LIVING STONES
    It will be seen that the three aspects enumerated above fall under
two heads in their final analysis, the first representing a series of
practical counsels, thinly allegorised upon in terms of symbolical
architecture. The Candidate is instructed to work towards his own
perfection under the light of Masonry. There is no mystery, no
concealment whatever, and it calls for no reaearch in respect of its
source. Its analogies and replicas are everywhere, more especially in
religious systems. It is a reflection of the Pauline doctrine that man
is or may become a temple of the Holy Spirit. But it should be
observed in this connection that there is a rather important though
confusing mixture of images in the address of the Worshipful Master to
the Candidate, after the latter has been invested and brought to the
East. It is pointed out to him that he represents the cornerstone of a
building- as it might be, the whole Masonic edifice- but he is
immediately counselled to raise a superstructure from the foundation
of that corner-stone- thus reversing the image. That of the corner-
stone is like an externalization in dramatic form of an old
Rosicrucian maxim belonging to the year 1629:- "Be ye transmuted from
dead stones into living, philosophical stones."
    From my point of view, it is the more important side of the
symbolism; it is as if the great Masonic edifice were to be raised on
each Candidate; and if every Neophyte shaped his future course both in
and out of Masonry, as though this were the case actually, I feel that
the Royal Art would be other than it now is and that our individual
lives would differ.

---

                              PART III
RECURRING to the Legend of the Third Degree, the pivot upon which it
revolves is the existence of a building secret, represented as a
Master-Word, which the Builder died to preserve.  Owing to his
untimely death, the Word was lost, and it has always been recognized
in Masonry that the Temple, unfinished at the moment of the untoward
event, remained with its operations suspended and was completed later
on by those who obviously did not possess the Word or key. The
tradition has descended to us and, as I have said, we.are still on the
quest.

    Now what does all this mean? We have no concern at the present
day, except in archaeology and history, with King Solomon's Temple.
What is meant by this Temple and what is the Lost Word? These things
have a meaning, or our system is stultified. Well, here are burning
questions, and the only direction in which we can look for an answer
is that which is their source. As to this, we must remember that the
Legend of the Master Degree is a Legend of Israel, under the aegis of
the Old Covenant, and though it has no warrants in the Holy Writ which
constitutes the Old Testament, it is not antecedently improbable that
something to our purpose may be found else,where in the literature of
Jewry.

                            THE KABALAH
    I do not of course mean that we shall meet with the Legend itself;
it would be interesting if we did but not per se helpful, apart from
explanation. I believe in my heart that I have found what is much more
important, and this is the root-matter of that which is shadowed forth
in the Legend, as regards the meaning of the Temple and the search for
the Lost Word. There are certain great texts which are known to
scholars under the generic name of Kabalah, a Hebrew word meaning
reception, or doctrinal teaching passed on from one to another by
verbal communication. According to its own hypothesis, it entered into
written records during the Christian era, but hostile criticism has
been disposed to represent it as invented at the period when it was
written. The question does not signify for our purpose, as the closing
of the 13th century is the latest date that the most drastic view- now
generally abandoned- has proposed for the most important text.
    We find therein after what manner, according to mystic Israel,
Solomon's Temple was spiritualized; we find deep meanings attached to
the two pillars J. and B.; we find how the word was lost and under
what circumstances the chosen people were to look for its recovery. It
is an expectation for Jewish theosophy, as it is for the Craft Mason.
It was lost owing to an untoward event, and although the time and
circumstances of its recovery have been calculated in certain texts of
the Kabalah, there has been something wrong with the methods. The
keepers of the tradition died with their faces toward Jerusalem,
looking for that time; but for Jewry at large the question has passed
from the field of view, much as the quest is continued by us in virtue
of a ceremonial formula but cannot be said to mean anything for those
who undertake and pursue it. It was lost owing to the unworthiness of
Israel, and the destruction of the First Temple was one consequence
thereof. By the waters of Babylon, in their exile, the Jews are said
to have remembered Zion, but the word did not come back into their
hearts; and when Divine Providence inspired Cyrus to bring about the
building of the Second Temple and the return of Israel into their own
land, they went back empty of all, recollection in this respect.

                          THE DIVINE NAME
    I am putting things in a summary fashion that are scattered up and
down the vast text with which I am dealing- that is to say, </B>Sepher
Ha Zohar,</B> The Book of Splendor. The word to which reference is
made is the Divine Name out of the consonants of which, <B>He, Vau,
He, Yod,</B> we have formed Jehovah, or more accurately Yahve. When
Israel fell into a state which is termed impenitence it is said in the
Zoharic Symbolism that the <B>Vau</B> and the <B>He</B> final were
separated. The name was dismembered, and this is the first sense of
loss which is registered concerning it. The second is that it has no
proper vowel points, those of the Name <B>Elohim</B> being
substituted, or alternatively the Name Adonai. It is said, for
example: "My Name is written <B>YHVH</B> and read <B>Adonai."</B> The
epoch of restoration and completion is called, almost indifferently,
that of resurrection, the world to come, and the advent of the
Messiah. In such day the present imperfect separation between the
letters will be put an end to, once and forever. If it be asked: What
is the connection between the loss and dismemberment which befell the
Divine Name Jehovah and the Lost Word in Masonry, I cannot answer too
plainly; but every Royal Arch Mason knows that which is communicated
to him in that Supreme Degree, and in the light of the present
explanation he will see that the "great" and "incomprehensible" thing
so imparted comes to him from the Secret Tradition of Israel.
    It is also to this Kabalistic source, rather than to the variant
accounts in the first book of Kings and in Chronicles, that we must
have recourse for the important Masonic Symbolism concerning the
Pillars J. and B. There is very little in Holy Scripture which would
justify a choice of these objects as particular representatives of our
art of building spiritualized. But in later Kabalism, in the texts
called "The Garden of Pomegranates" and in "The Gates of Light," there
is a very full and complicated explanation of the strength which is
attributed to B., the left-hand Pillar, and of that which is
established in and by the right-hand Pillar, called J.

                             THE TEMPLE
    As regards the Temple itself, I have explained at length elsewhere
after what manner it is spiritualized in various Kabalistic and semi-
Kabalistic texts, so that it appears ever as "the proportion of the
height, the proportion of the depth, and the lateral proportions" of
the created universe, and again as a part of the transcendental
mystery of law which is at the root of the secret tradition in Israel.
This is outside our subject, not indeed by its nature but owing to
limitations of opportunity. I will say only that it offers another
aspect of a fatal loss in Israel and the world- which is commented on
in the tradition. That which the Temple symbolized above all things
was, however, a House of Doctrine, and as on the one hand the Zohar
shows us how a loss and substitution were perpetuated through
centuries, owing to the idolatry of Israel at the foot of Mount Horeb
in the wilderness of Sinai, and illustrated by the breaking of the
Tables of Stone on which the Law was inscribed; so does Speculative
Masonry intimate that the Holy House, which was planned and begun
after one manner, was completed after another and a word of death was
substituted for a word of life.

                            THE BUILDER
    I shall not need to tell you that beneath such veils of allegory
and amidst such illustrations of symbolism, the Master-Builder
signifies a principle and not a person, historical or otherwise. He
signifies indeed more than a single principle, for in the world of
mystic intimations through which we are now moving, the question, "Who
is the Master?" would be answered by many voices. But generically, he
is the imputed life of the Secret-Doctrine which lay beyond the letter
of the Written Law, which "the stiff-necked and disobedient" of the
patriarchal, sacerdotal and prophetical dispensatioms contrived to
destroy. According to the Secret Tradition of Israel, the whole
creation was established for the manifestation of this life, which
became manifested actually in its dual aspect when the spiritual Eve
was drawn from the side of the spiritual Adam and placed over against
him, in the condition of face to face. The intent of creation was made
void in the event which is called the Fall of Man, though the
particular expression is unknown in Scripture. By the hypothesis, the
"fatal consequences" which followed would have reached their time on
Mount Sinai, but the Israelites, when left to themselves in the
wilderness, "sat down to eat and rose up to play." That which is
concealed in the evasion of the last words cdrresponds to the state of
Eve in Paradise, when, she had become infected by the serpent.
    To sum up as regards the sources, the Lost Word in Masonry is
derived from a Kabalistic thesis of imperfection in the Divine Name
Jehovah, by which the true pronunciation- that is to say, the true
meaning- is lost. It was the life of the House of Doctrine,
represented by the Temple planned of old in Israel. The Master-Builder
is the Spirit, Secret or Life of the Doctrine; and it is the quest of
this that every Mason takes upon himself in the ceremony of the Third
Degree, so that the House, which in the words of another Masonic
Degree, is now, for want of territory, built only in the heart, "a
superstructure perfect in its parts and honorable to the builder."

                           CRAFT MASONRY
    But if these are the sources of Craft Masonry, taken at its
culmination in the Sublime Degree, what manner of people were those
who grafted so strange a speculation and symbolism on the Operative
procedure of a building-Guild? The answer is that all about that
period which represents what is called the transition, or during the
16th and 17th centuries, the Latin-writing Scholars were animated with
zeal for the exposition of the tradition in Israel, with the result
that many memorable and even great books were produced on the subject.
Among those scholars were many great names, and they provided the
materials ready to the hands of the symbolists. What purpose had the
latter in view? The answer is that in Germany,Italy, France and
England, the Zeal for Kabalistic literature among the Latin-writing
scholars had not merely a scholastic basis. They believed that the
texts of the Secret Tradition showed plainly, out of the mouth of
Israel itself, that the Messiah had come. This is the first fact. The
second I have mentioned already, namely, that although, the central
event of the Third Degree is the Candidate's Raising, it is not said
in the Legend that the Master-Builder rose, thus suggesting that
something remains to come after, which might at once complete the
Legend and conclude the quest. The third fact is that in a rather
early and important High Degree of the philosophical kind, now almost
unknown, the Master-Builder of the Third Degree rises as Christ, and
so completes the dismembered Divine Name, by insertion of the Hebrew
letter Shin, this producing <B>Yeheshua</B>- the restoration of the
Lost Word in the Christian Degrees of Masonry. Of course, I am putting
this point only as a question of fact in the development of symbolism.
Meanwhile, I trust that, amidst many imperfections, I have done
something to indicate a new ground for our consideration, and to show
that the speaking mystery of the Opening and Closing of the Third
Degree and the Legend of the Master-Builder come from what may seem to
us very far away, but yet not so distant that it is impossible to
trace them to their source.

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Scanned from the periodical "The Builder", Vol. II, 1916, in three
parts, from the issues of April, May and June. Formatted and corrected
by hand.