Secrets and Practices of the Freemasons: Sacred Mysteries, Rituals and Symbols Revealed - Jean-Louis de Biasi 2011
The Symbols and the Masonic Ritual Process
Principles of Practice
Freemasonry[3] is a very rich tradition, but its message is in reality simple and universal: be good men! This injunction, so often repeated, lies at the heart of the moral commitment of every Freemason. Honesty, forthrightness, respect for others and the institutions of the state, of trust and faith must become the foundations of your inner being: these are the very values that a Freemason is expected to uphold in the outer world. It is according to these values that Freemasons, and Masonry as an institution, are judged.
Admittedly, they are also fundamental principles of other groups, as well as most religions. However, Freemasonry is devoid of the dogmas that can sometimes alter the fundamental message. And it is unique because it concentrates this moral message in a ritual setting, which gives it a true intensity. Despite the briefness of the initiation ceremony, the Freemason is expected to ponder these principles often so as to gradually integrate them into his daily life.
However, the very simplicity of this message might sound like a real paradox for every new initiate. If the values are that simple, it is difficult to understand why Freemasons need a ritual initiation and need to regularly perform complex rituals.
Trying to understand the nature and usefulness of the symbols contained in Masonic rituals can be sometimes difficult. One of the reasons is that some of the symbols have evolved, so that they may be used and interpreted differently, depending on the time. For example, let us consider the case of the square and compass that rest on the book of the sacred law in the center of the temple. In ancient times, little thought was given to how they are intertwined and what that meant. Those interpretations were added much later, and it is easy to see how multiple meanings can weaken or call into question the value of the rite and the value of the symbols it was trying to transmit.
To be able to understand the role of symbolism in Masonic ritual, one needs to return to the origins of humanity, to a faraway time when man was a defenseless creature in a dangerous environment. Our ancestors were much more exposed to the imposing phenomena of nature. Whenever a natural disaster occurred, whether a storm thundered and shook the sky, or a volcano began to erupt, everyone would wonder about the cause of these manifestations. They would try to figure out what the “intelligent” intention behind them might be. These phenomena were impossible to control, and man was left to wonder why these natural forces would kill human beings. It was natural that they would come to the conclusion that such a terrible demonstration of power came from some divine beings. Trying to explain the unexplainable, our ancestors established a causal relationship between the frightful demonstrations of divine power they observed and the divine beings that must be causing these evils. If a volcano erupted and destroyed lives, it was undoubtedly because it was hungry. And thus the only reasonable thing to do was to offer the volcano god a human sacrifice, so as to maybe prevent further eruptions. If the underground gods obtained what they wanted, perhaps they would spare the remaining members of the tribe.
As humanity evolved into civilization, though, this kind of direct compensation was abandoned, and so symbolic or notational representations were devised as a replacement. Thus the volcano was replaced by the image of fire, the flood by the image of water, the earthquake by that of earth, and so on. What our ancestors were doing was to intellectualize these natural phenomena into a symbolic system.
At that stage of evolution, the original meaning of these new symbols was still relatively clear. For instance, I might offer a libation of water or wine in order to calm down a storm so that my ship could complete its travel without difficulty. Songs might be declaimed at the time of pastoral offerings. It is in this way that the basic ritual gestures that one can find in all human cultures were born. There was still no attempt to analyze the meaning of the symbols used in the rite, although the direct relationship is very easy to see. For example, the wine or other liquid that is poured into the sea is obviously linked to the shipwreck I am trying to avoid. It’s the same if I lit a flame to represent a volcano, and so on.
As this development of symbols gradually occurred, it was inevitable that the explicit link between the original phenomena and the natural symbol would become blurred. Thus, the cup that holds the water became associated with water, and it was no longer necessary to physically include water or wine in the rite. The image of the cup truly becomes the symbol of water, a cubic stone that of earth. And so we gradually arrive at a level of pure abstraction, which, while rooted in an objective reality, begins to create a world of pure representations that have symbolic meaning.
The first question that one might ask when confronted with a new symbol (the compass, the trowel, the square, or the apron) is whether it has any meaning. If the symbol has nothing to offer beyond the obvious, we could make it the object of fantasies and intellectual projections. Then any fantasy would be allowed and we could say anything about that symbol. But considering the Masonic rituals, we know that this is not true. However, the ability to feel it and to clearly understand it are quite different things.
These questions are certainly not new: they have been discussed extensively by the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, who were themselves initiated into, and worshipers of, the mysteries. Obviously, their analyses would require a detailed explanation. However, it is possible to extract from their theories, the principal idea that will enable us to advance in our own analysis: the spiritualization of natural symbols. This reasoning is based on the following. As I said before, the tempest was linked to the symbol of the cup, so we must rise from the physical world that surrounds us to the world of ideas, from the material planes to the divine planes above. And it means something very important: that just as the body is a manifestation of the spirit, and not the other way around, the symbols must be searched for their true spiritual value, as opposed to their mere material significance.
But searching for the spiritual value of symbols is not easy, and this is where the Masonic rituals come into play. Their regular practice makes an inner conviction to grow, a faith to emerge; in short, something of a higher nature that makes the initiate willing to accept the existence of another reality beyond the material: a spiritual reality. As Freemasons believe in a supreme being and the immortality of the soul, it is impossible to accept the idea that the spirit is reduced to only the body, and that it disappears with death. I am not speaking here about a scientific demonstration, but about an inner conviction, a strong inner feeling. And the Masonic practice gradually makes the initiate realize deeper and deeper that the symbols of the temple are also those of the Inner Temple, analogous to the heart (which stands for the soul) and to the cosmos, behind which you see the divinities and, farther, the Great Architect. What the mystical tradition of the West, from the Platonist and Neoplatonist philosophers to modern theurgists, has always taught is that manifestation, or the first stirrings of the creation of the world, occur in a movement from above to below. The corporeal body is just a visible aspect of a more subtle reality. And as the soul descends into the body, so does an idea descend into a symbol. This downward movement has nothing to do with a fall from heaven or from grace: it is about the envelopment of the soul into a body, just like a body envelops itself into some clothes before going outside. And so a symbol in reality is nothing but the most subtle clothing of an original and unique idea, emanated from the world above. So the natural representation of water and fire, for example, is just the most external clothing of the archetypal unity it represents. This change of perspective leads to a very important truth: that there is a consubstantial and original bond that the symbol establishes between these two dimensions. The symbol becomes the nexus, or meeting point, of the exchanges that take place between the material and divine planes.
So let us now reconsider the principles that I have just stated. According to Platonic philosophy, there is an ideal or spiritual world that contains the root principle, or archetypal ideal, of all that exists around us. As Plato told us in the myth of the cave, we live in an obscure world of darkness and illusions. I am not saying it is a bad world, but it is a deceptive world that could lead us to believe that the greatest pleasures are immediate physical pleasures, and the only satisfactions of the soul are to be found in this world. One of our objectives is to leave the cave and abandon these illusions. To understand what I am saying about the spiritual world, which is the place of ideal forms and first causes, let us take a simple example. There are many varieties of trees in this country, such as maples, oaks, pines, and birches, but if I say the word tree in a conversation, you will grasp immediately what I mean without having to resort to a particular representation of the word. This is because you already have in your mind an idealized concept of what “tree” means, even if this idea cannot really be represented in details. This same principle applies to our understanding of human beings. The sacred texts speak about Adam and Eve, or the Qabalah of Adam Kadmon, who is defined as some kind of ideal man. Let us not forget what I have just said: there is a generic ideal that predates every created thing and which generates everything that follows. And so the idea of humanity existed on the higher planes before it came upon this Earth, and what the sacred texts do is help us connect to it via another symbol.
This theory of symbols was very much confirmed by the research of Carl Gustav Jung and his school. It is well known that he was deeply interested in the universality of symbols. Let us take an example that Jung offers in one of his books. During a visit at his hospital, he saw a mental patient in crisis who was looking intently at the Sun and beginning to express great excitement. As Jung questioned him, the patient declared that a “green snake was leaving the Sun!” This sounded like another sentence from a fool, but then a few years after this episode, Jung heard the same account from the mythology of the native peoples of South America. This is what started him to formulate his theory of archetypes, the belief that there are universal symbols or archetypes present in what he called the collective unconscious. This is why, no matter the geographical location, the symbols used in various cultures share a similar appearance: because they are essentially the same and are drawn from the collective unconsciousness of humanity. Admittedly they can differ somewhat in detail, but a more attentive observation can usually bring us to an awareness of their underlying similarity.
Up to this point I have been speaking about symbols as something external to you, something you can see in lodges, temples, or places of worship of various religions, even though you may struggle to interpret them. However, the Western Tradition reminds us that the true object of the work is ourselves. As said in the ancient Western motto, “Know yourself and you will know the universe and the gods,” so must you learn how to know yourself to be able to perfect yourself. This is about polishing your own stone. As I said before in this book, you are like the image of a divine statue that has fallen into a seabed and became covered with encrustations. It is up to you to reveal what lies beneath and to restore the beauty and purity of your original form.
The Hermetic Tradition teaches us, “That which is above is as that which is below, to achieve the miracles of the one thing.” Thus, you are one with the image of the universe. The Masonic temple and its symbols are a dual representation of the universe (macrocosm) and of the human being (microcosm). The lodge therefore symbolizes each initiate, and all of the visible representations are present in the ideal world, which is internal to each of us. This implies that any action performed on any external symbol will also act on and have an effect on what the symbol represents inside of us. If you gaze at a burning candle, or look at a sacred book resting in a place of honor, then your subconscious will respond by acting upon the corresponding internal force or archetype. Thus, the act of looking intently at a flame will have a real impact on your inner fire-nature.
Imagine a musical instrument, something like a lyre with three strings. If I pluck a string on one side, the string next to it will also start to vibrate. This is exactly what occurs when we look at any true symbol. As for the “string” on the other side, it will also begin to vibrate. The blended sound, which rises from the vibration of these two strings, will have an impact on the first string that I initially plucked. It is the same in our work with symbols; each action we take interacts with every other action at various levels. However, although I have just been speaking here about symbols and the effect of looking at symbols, the work in a Masonic lodge is not a motionless contemplation. Acting through the ritual transmits this tradition through the means of initiations that develop over several degrees. Each particular ritual is a system of symbols, which is put into motion in a particular way.
For example, I could discuss the symbolism of a candle, or I could also light the candle. I may analyze the symbolism of the compass, but I may also open it. Instead of just thinking about the symbolism of the mallet and the chisel, I can also use them to strike a stone and so “feel” the symbols. The rituals thereby amplify the resonance phenomenon that I illustrated with the example of the lyre with three strings. The fundamental principle is that I proceed with resonance from a single note (the symbol) to a symphony of sounds (the ritual). And so the impact on the psyche will be that of a symphony instead of just that of a single note.
In this way, we start to understand how a false note (or false symbol) destroys the quality of the music, and how a continual succession of false notes makes the musical composition completely cacophonous and unable to stir the (higher) emotions, or to have the effect desired by the composer. The ritual is not an entertaining game for grown-ups, but a very serious matter. It has been specifically designed to achieve a precise goal in the deep psyche, and so to transport the initiate towards the highest spiritual planes. It is for this reason that the ritual cannot be something merely improvised; the way the ritual is designed and performed is of the utmost importance.
From the time of the Ancient Mysteries, initiation has taken the form of many different ceremonies to alter an individual’s state of consciousness. From a certain point of view, I may say that initiation is a “divine play.” On the first level, initiation is a method that introduces symbols through ritual movements in order to act on the subconscious mind of the initiate. The ritual use of symbols causes the person to react psychologically: he begins to pay attention to the archetypes present in his subconscious, and this activates the bond that attaches him to the spiritual and divine planes. And so, if properly carried out, ritual can help us gain consciousness of our divine inner nature; then it is truly self-sufficient.
However, the process cannot stop there, because this method does not work perfectly each time. The candidate is symbolically a “rough stone,” and some stones will remain rough throughout their entire Masonic course. Indeed, it seems that some stones are not easy to polish. Is this the fault of Masonry and its ritual? Not entirely.
As I have explained, the rituals are generally performed in a very beautiful external temple. Remember that, in the Platonic Tradition, beauty is equated with goodness and justice. Thus the cultivation of beauty, when associated with the study of philosophy and the practice of virtue, elevates us toward the divine. But we should not assume that the beauty of an external temple automatically connects us with the divine. Indeed, such an illusion would lead us to forget the nature of the true inner temple. Ritual owes its reason for existence to the reality of inner life, as do all of the elements that surround the initiate. It is appropriate that, just as Hiram the student rebuilt his temple, so you will be able to fashion an inner temple from the external temple, in order to give it a true reality in your heart. Those Freemasons who perform a ritual from memory achieve this kind of effect by vivifying their inner nature, because at each moment the temple and the ritual are present within.
From the moment when the symbol becomes alive in the practitioner, it becomes possible for him to give it life in the external world. Thus, we cannot act on the outside world, if we have not first accomplished the necessary work in the inside world. Before lighting a candle outside of you, you must first light the candle inside you, and so if you want to be able to bring light into a temple, it is essential that you begin by illuminating yourself internally. This means that what makes for a real and effective Masonic initiation—that is, one that has the ability to really affect the candidate—demands a real continuity between the inner work and the external work.
The techniques of interiorizing symbols and acting on the symbols with rituals are extremely old and they helped to elaborate some even more ancient initiatic systems, of which Freemasonry was a part. In the ancient world, the orator used to pronounce most of his lectures from memory, and there were special techniques to memorize the work as perfectly as possible. One such technique was to create a mental representation of a chamber where the orator would place the different elements present in the lecture. Such a representation is a physical reality into which it is possible to put specific objects, individuals, or scenes. At the moment when the orator gave his speech, it was sufficient that he revisualize the chamber and mentally hold it in his mind so that the picture corresponded to his original text. Over time, this mental representation gave rise to increasing constructs that became known, during the Renaissance period, as “the theatre of memory.” Thus, in the sixteenth century, in a work bearing this same title, Giulio Camillo describes a strong theatrical symbolic system. Camillo said of this place that it is the representation of the soul, of what cannot be seen with the carnal eyes. The number 7 is omnipresent in that work in the number of columns, doors, lines of steps, and so forth. The columns, for example, are associated with the planets, and then with the angels and the Sephiroth from the Qabalistic Tree of Life, and so on. This is, at one and the same time, an image of the world and the spirit.
The initiates of this period began to make an ever stronger connection between this internal representation of the symbol and the nature of the symbol, which I previously described. The inner temple gradually became the place where the initiate stood at the center of the symbols he was working on. Later, the ritual began to take form in this inner temple and was gradually elaborated into a conscious transformation of the self, in which the initiate attempted to reconnect with the upper levels of his consciousness through the exaltation of his soul. The symbols that were used in the rituals were created from what is observed and understood of our daily lives. The ritual was conceived internally, on the spiritual level, using that symbolic knowledge, but in full consciousness and according to the genuine principles of transformation. The operative or theurgic rituals (as they were called) were always worked out in this way. It was according to these very principles that, later, an interpretation of the operative tools of Freemasonry was to be formulated. And it gave life to what I now call Freemasonry. It is clear in the writings of Albert Pike and others that the bond with ancient initiations was conscious and intentional, and that these techniques were used to conceive the modern system of rites and initiations. One may therefore understand why these principles of inner work are fundamental. Without those principles, the initiations and rituals would be nothing more than a mere “stage trick,” performed without heart even if the representation is of the highest quality. And this is what “working in the lodge” is truly about.
With the introduction of the inner dimension, the initiate becomes able to place himself on the spiritual level and to really act on his own being. But it needs to be emphasized that this is not an automatic by-product: it only comes about through traditional techniques of visualization (mental representation), pronunciation, concentration, and moving about in the inner temple. More succinctly put, this elevation only occurs when he takes control of all of the aspects of the ritual, firstly on the inner level, and then, secondly, on the external level. So truly nothing is without reason in a ritual. This inner work offers the inspiration to transform the ritual performance in the lodge into such a powerful method that contemporary Freemasons would have nothing to envy in the numerous traditions of the East.
I have just discussed symbols and rituals together, without any more precise analysis. However, one of the characteristics of this initiatic system is that it is built upon levels of various degrees. It was the same in the oratory technique, where the speaker mentally envisioned various parts of a building in which he would walk around. Each part of the building corresponded to a part of the lecture. On the spiritual level, the connection between the material world and the spiritual world is something that is gradually built over time. These degrees of evolving connection are called emanations in the Neoplatonic tradition: they represent advancement on the upward path, bringing us back toward the source of our soul.
Thus, Freemasonry also developed specific and progressive initiations. Each one has its own representations, symbols, passwords, and myths. Each degree offers a particular message, while remaining a part of the whole. Each degree is associated with a specific and personal inner working, which continues to deepen the initiation that has already been received; this is true both for the first three degrees and the “side degrees” (degrees after the 3rd). Each stage brings us closer to the source from whence we came and awakens the memory of our celestial origin.
In ancient times, the initiates of the Mysteries of Eleusis gathered together in a room of the mysteries, which was called in Greek the Telesterion. There the divine rites were played out or ritually performed on stage. Thereafter, they were supposed to apply more specific individual techniques that would enable them to assimilate these rites and to go through each of these stages in their inner body. Participation in a ritual is not adequate in and of itself; one needs to continue the work in the privacy of one’s inner temple in order to make this process fully operative. Of course, this is made possible by organizing the teachings of basic techniques and special practices that are specific to each degree. It is the same for the practice of the ritual in the lodge. Training is necessary and possible. (Lodge members eager to do so can contact the author of this book for more information.)
This tradition comes from classical philosophy, as well as from the ancient schools of the mysteries, and is able to transmit a very rich heritage. However, Freemasons must perpetuate and renew it unceasingly in order to reveal all of its facets. With this essential moral step as foundation, the initiatory progression can, as the Platonists and Neoplatonists would say, lead the initiates out of the cave, viewed as a representation of the world and the body. The common grades mark the essential stages of the progression while the individual work completes the evolution and assimilation. The periods of lodge practice, together with individual meditation on the symbols, provide the initiate with a complete system to carry out the true construction of his inner world, something able to elevate him to the highest degrees of consciousness. This is how the participation of Freemasons in both fraternity and the mundane world shall take its true meaning: to help this world become a better place for humanity.