The Mysticism of Masonry (translated) E-Book

Unknown

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

- This edition is unique;
- The translation is completely original and was carried out for the Ale. Mar. SAS;
- All rights reserved.

A short book by an unknown author on Freemasonry and the mysteries within it. Chapters include: The Fundamentals Of All Masonic Institutions And The Ancient Mysteries Are One; And, The Symbolism Of The Ancient Mysteries And Masonry Are Identical.

Leseprobe

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

THE MYSTICISM OF MASONRY

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ALL MASONIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES ARE ONE

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONRY ARE IDENTICAL

THE MYSTICISM OF MASONRY

UNKNOWN

INTRODUCTORY

In placing this volume, which is the revised edition of the book first issued under the title, Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry, I do so without the thought of an apology, owing to the fact that the first edition was received by the earnest students of Masonry and the Occult not because it was an expose, but because it was an interpretation of Masonic symbolism as handed down to us through the ages from the Mysteries of the Ancients.

As a Masonic work, the book must stand unchallenged for the reason that the basis of its symbolism is from the highest and universally accepted Masonic writers. The interpretation is also Masonic, with an additional Mystic interpretation appearing within brackets. For this I am personally responsible, though these explanations are based on and entirely harmonious with the inculcations of the Ancient Mysteries as received by myself through my various journeys in the realm of the mystic. It is therefore entirely lawful for me to offer them to the aspiring neophyte.

There are indeed many reasons why the present volume should be generously circulated among all classes of students of the Occult and Mystic, especially the members of the Masonic bodies. Entirely too little is known to the vast majority of these brethren of the modern organizations known as Masonic. They have been given the letter, which, though beautiful in itself, does not contain the life, and because of this lack, they cannot successfully defend the expression frequently heard, that Masonry is a religion.

Initiation is not what it is generally supposed to be. All Masons are familiar with the ceremonial form of Initiation but in reality this is no more than an outward symbolization of an inner, an esoteric work, which should take place within each man seeking the Mysteries. A man may have received the degrees of the Blue Lodge and may be an honor to that lodge and yet be wholly unfamiliar with the method of procedure which would bring into manifestation the results of the personification of the life as symbolized in these three degrees. It is this outcome of which, not only Masons but the entire human race are now so very much in need.

Thousands of good men and true accept the letter of Masonry for the spirit or as including the spirit. Here is where begins the first great error. Nothing new can come to Masonry but there is a world of truth in Masonic symbolism of which the vast majority of the membership of the honored body has not even heard, to say nothing of having a comprehension of the saving truth therein contained. It is for the purpose of helping these and pointing them the way, that the present work in its new form of interpretation is presented to them, as well as to the public, it being the author's contention that this plan cannot possibly harm Masonry but, contrariwise, will help to glorify the institution by showing that it is kept alive and moving forward by a spirit which makes for the welfare not alone of the members of the association, but of mankind generally and universally.

Masons who know and Initiates of the true Occult Brotherhoods who have had life and strength enspirited within by the knowledge of basic truths harmonious with universal (God's) irrevocable Law, uncontradictably maintain that:

"The ritual of Freemasonry [Masonic symbolization] is based on this natural law, and the ceremony of initiation illustrates, at every step, this principle, and if the result attained is a possession [of words and symbols] rather than a regeneration [of the candidate], in the great majority of cases, the principle remains none the less true. The mere inculcation of moral principles, or lessons in ethic, and their symbolic illustration and dramatic representation, are by no means in vain. These appeal to the conscience and moral sense in every man and no man has ever been made worse by the lessons of the lodge. By these rites and benefits, the Freemason is, above all men, in our so- called modern civilization, the nearest to the Ancient Wisdom. He has possession of the territory in which lie concealed the Crown Jewels of Wisdom. He may dig deeper and find not only the Keystone of the Arch, the Ark of the Covenant, the Scroll of the Law but, using the spirit concealed in the wings of the Cherubim, he may rise untrammeled by the rubbish of the temple and, meeting Elohim [Jehovah Adonai - the Father of Light], learn also to say "I am that I am!" Does this read like a rhapsody, and are the landmarks, traditions and glyphs of Freemasonry, nothing more?

"The Universal Science and the Sublime Philosophy, once taught in the Greater Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia and India [ and now in the Priesthood of ÆEth] and among the many other nations of antiquity, is a dead letter in modern Freemasonry. The intelligent Mason, however, should be the last person in the world to deny that such a Wisdom once existed, for the simple reason that the whole superstructure of Masonry is built upon the traditions of its existence, and its ritual serves as its living monument. Proficiency in the preceding degree is everywhere made a reason for advancement in Masonry. This proficiency is made to consist in the ability of the candidate to repeat word for word, certain rituals and obligations already passed, the meaning and explanations of which constitute the lectures in the various degrees. The usage at this point, in the United States at least, serves to secure the rights and benefits of the Lodge [the lodge is symbolic of the heavens as well as the universe] to those entitled to them, and to withhold them from others, rather than to advance the candidate in real knowledge [i.e., the bringing into existence, manifestation and personification the potencies and forces innate within this universe which would become heaven]. -Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

Centuries ago, a real Mysticism existed within the Symbolic Masonry and this is the legend:1

It came to pass when the Great Temple was completed that Solomon hesitated to dedicate it for two reasons:

First, on account of the death of Hiram Abiff.

Second, due to the fact that with the death of the Widow's Son, the Master's Word and the secret manner of using it had been lost. Therefore, Solomon in his extremity called a Secret Council at low-twelve in the secret crypt under the Sanctum Sanctorum. This Secret Council consisted of Solomon, King of Israel; Hiram, King of Tyre; Zadok, the High Priest and Benaiah, Captain of the Guards.

After Solomon had deplored the loss of Hiram Abiff and, with him, the Master's Word and the secret manner of using it, Hiram, King of Tyre, arose and reminded King Solomon that Nathan, the Prophet, was still alive and might be able to render some assistance in the present calamity. Solomon, therefore, ordered Benaiah, Captain of the Guards, to search out and bring before him Nathan, the Prophet.

Benaiah, having ascertained that Nathan the Prophet was at the house of Abiathar, a former High Priest under King David, repaired to the palace only to find that Nathan had died of old age but a very short time previous to his arrival. He therefore set about to return and discovering a stranger wandering near the Secret Crypt, he thereupon took him into his custody and brought him before the Secret Council. The stranger proved to be Abdemon, a very wise man and a subject of Hiram, King of Tyre. Upon examination it was found that he had been initiated as an Entered Apprentice, passed to the Degree of Fellow Craft, raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason by Seisan, a Scribe, who had journeyed into the country of the Tyrians, so that the secrets of Masonry preceded Hiram, King of Tyre, into his own dominions.

Abdemon, being a Master Mason, and recognized by King Hiram as a very learned and crafty man, was at length admitted to the Secret Council after giving into the hands of King Solomon a manuscript that had been given to him in a wonderful and mysterious manner by an Egyptian during the time he was held in confinement by the Secret Council. Solomon was so pleased with the manuscript that he then and there admitted Abdemon as a member of the Secret Council which was then sitting. Abdemon, in his turn, felt himself so highly honored that he begged leave and received permission to journey into the land of Egypt that he might be initiated into the secrets of the Initiates of the Great Pyramid and, in turn, promised to journey back into the land of the Israelites and disclose to the Secret Council what he had learned. Abdemon was successful in his efforts and the following degrees were instituted to preserve the knowledge he had gained in the land of Egypt and his journey and initiation in the Great Stone Pyramid: The King's Pioneer; Degree of Master of the Secret Cavern.

After resting for three days at the well of Beersheba, Ameni, the Singer, the Horoscopus and Abdemon, under the escort of the King's Pioneer, journeyed by easy stages to Mount Serbal, where the parties took refuge in a natural cave and there Abdemon received his final instructions before his initiation into the Degrees of the Pyramid.

During the course of the journey, Ameni disclosed to Abdemon many hidden mysteries concerning initiation and why it was impossible to make these disclosures to the multitude in general. Among the things which Ameni communicated to Abdemon on their journey, the following is but a part:

"Before appearing on earth, man [the Soul which takes up its abode in the body we call man] lived in a spiritual world, similar to the one in which he lives on leaving the earth. Each awaits his turn in this sphere to appear on earth, an appearance necessary, a life of trials none can escape.

"The life anterior, which we have all passed through, was, so to speak, a life of nothingness, of childbirth, of happiness like that which we enjoy on our exit from the earth; but this happiness cannot be comprehended, because it is not accompanied with sensations to prove its reality, therefore God deemed it fit that we should pass through these successive lives, the first, on the globes of which I speak to you - a life unknown of beatitude, devoid of sensation - the second, the one you now enjoy, a life of action, sensation - a painful life placed between the two, to demonstrate through its contrast the sweetness of the third - the life of good and evil, without which we should not be able to appreciate the happy state reserved for us [the Initiates - those who attain Regeneration while in the body of flesh and blood. Thereby coming into a Consciousness of the Soul which is a part of God].

"That the Soul is an emanation of Deity and, in its original essence, is all purity, truth and wisdom, is an axiom which the disembodied learn, when the powers of memory are sufficiently awakened to perceive the state of existence anterior to moral birth. In the Paradise of Purity and Love, Souls spring up like blossoms in the All-Father's garden of immortal beauty. It is the tendency of the Divine nature, whose chief attributes are Love and Wisdom, Life and Light, to repeat itself eternally, and mirror forth its own perfection in scintillations from itself. These sparks of heavenly fire [parts of God] become Souls, and as the effect must share in the nature of the cause, the fire which warms into life, also illuminates into Light, hence the Soulemanations from the Divine are all Love and Light, whilst the illumination of Light, which streams ever from the great central Sun of Being [God's Light], irradiates all Souls [who harmonize themselves with God, or the Light] with corresponding beams of Light. Born of Love which corresponds to Divine Warmth, and Irradiated with Light, which is of Divine Wisdom and Truth, the first and most powerful Souls repeated the action of the Supreme Originator, gave off emanations from their own being, some higher, some lower, the highest tending upward into spiritual essences, the lowest forming particulate matter. The denser emanations, following out the creative law, aggregated into suns, satellites, worlds, each repeating the story of creation. Suns gave birth to Systems and every member of a system became a theatre of subordinate states of spiritual or material existence.

"Earths that have attained to the capacity to support organic life, necessarily attract it. Earths demand it, heaven supplies it. Whence? As the earths groan for the lordship of superior beings to rule over them, the spirits of distant Edens hear the whispers of the tempting Serpent [desire, longing], the animal principle, the urgent intellect, which appealing to the blest Souls in their distant paradises, fill them with indescribable longings for change, for broader vistas of knowledge, for mightier powers; they would be as the gods and know good and evil. In this urgent appeal of the earths for man, and this involuntary yearning of the Soul for intellectual knowledge, the union is effected between the two, and the spirit becomes precipitated into the realms of matter to undergo a pilgrimage through the probationary states of earth, only to regain paradise again by the fulfillment of the pilgrimage."

"The vast majority of Masons smile with derision when the term "Occult Science" is used in connection with the Mysteries but, despite this, if it had not been for the Occult Fraternities, Masonry could not have existed. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the Ancients. Proof of its diffusion, authentic records of history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence in every land, together with the teachings of all its great Adepts, exist to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternities, among which, the true Rosicrucian Fraternity, more than any other, is to be thanked for keeping the Secret and Sacred writings intact. Although individual members of this Fraternity have been persecuted in many lands during all the centuries, the Order as such, has continued without interruption.

"We do not know a thing because we are told, so. Let the gods shout the truth of all ages into the ears of a fool forever, and still forever the fool would be joined to his folly. Herein lies the conception and the principle of all Initiations. [It is the knowledge unfolded by degrees in an orderly, systematic manner, step by step, as the capacity to apprehend opens in the Neophyte. The result is Wisdom through inner, spiritual or Soul growth.] Knowledge is not a mere sum in addition; something added to something that already exists; but rather is such a progressive change or transformation of the original structure as to make it, at every step, a New Being. Real knowledge, or the growth [accumulation of wisdom through experience] of wisdom in man, is an Eternal Becoming; a progressive transformation into the likeness of the supernal Goodness and the supreme power." -Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry. Every Soul must "work out its own salvation (Immortality)." Salvation by Faith and the Vicarious Atonement were not taught, as now interpreted, by either Jesus or other saviors, nor are these doctrines part of the esoteric Scriptures. They are perversions of the original doctrine due to the degrading hand of Constantine. In the early Church, as in the Secret Doctrine, there was not one Christ for the whole world, but a potential Christ in every man. Theologians first made a fetish of the impersonal, Omnipresent Divinity; then tore the Christos from the hearts of humanity in order to deify Jesus, that they might have a God made peculiarly their own and who would be as a `clearing house' in their `traffic in Souls.' Masonry does not teach Salvation by Faith nor the Vicarious Atonement. Go through its degrees, study the History as taught by its recognized authorities and you cannot find that it ever countenances these doctrines.

"Humanity in toto is the only personal God; the Christos is the realization or the perfection of this divine Persona, in [through] individual conscious experience. When this perfection is realized, the state is called Christos, with the Greeks, and Buddha, with the Hindus. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect!"

"We have brought the same selfishness into our religion that we indulge in regard to our other possessions, such as wife and children, houses and land and country; and the same partisan spirit as in our politics, and this more than anything else appears to justify selfishness in general, militates against the brotherhood of man and prevents the founding of the `Great Republic, composed of many Nations and all people. ' This idea of Universal Brotherhood, which was a cardinal doctrine in the Ancient Mysteries, as it is involved in the first postulate of the Secret Doctrine and openly declared in the third, and which is equally given the very first rank in Masonry, is the logical deduction from our idea of Divinity and of the essential nature and meaning of Christos.

"Masonry preaches no new religion; it but reiterates the Commandment announced by Jesus, which also was announced by every great reformer or religion since history began. Drop the theological barnacles from the religion of Jesus, as taught by him, and by the Essenes and Gnostics of the first centuries, and it becomes [the Mysticism of] Masonry. Masonry in its purity, derived as it is from the old Kabalah as a part of the great universal Wisdom Religion of the remotest antiquity, stands squarely for the unqualified and universal Brotherhood of man, in all times and in every age. To Christianize Masonry or to narrow it to the sectarian bonds of any creed, is not only to dwarf and belittle it but must inevitably result, as among warring sects has always resulted with religion, in setting brother against brother, and lodge against lodge." -Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

The Mysticism of Masonry can recognize neither color nor creed, and in that lies its safety and through this will it gradually bring about the Universal Brotherhood of Man. Not only does Mysticism teach this but all those who would belong to the Brotherhood must practice it. Is there not a wave of the spirit of Brotherhood sweeping almost all countries? With all the wealth possessed by the rich, and the shorter working hours and greater benefits of the laborer, is either satisfied? Are not all classes, rich and poor alike, suffering constantly from an internal dissatisfaction which to the spirit is as a cancer to the flesh ? This is the certain indication that the Souls of men are trying to glimpse the vista of the future; that they are awaiting the coming of the New Interpretation of the Old Laws as suited to their application to the needs of the New Age.

"So long as the mind is held in bondage by low desires, man cannot seek or discern the good or the true. He inquires, `What is good for me?' Freed from such desire or the personal bias, he inquires after and seeks for that which is good or true in itself. When this condition is attained and habitually maintained, the square is said to be enclosed in the triangle. The lower nature is said to be at one with the Divine, or Over Soul. Man's knowledge and power are no longer confined to or circumscribed by the lower plane, or the physical body but, transcending these by regeneration [Spiritualization] and becoming perfect in humanity, man attains Divinity. This is the meaning, aim, and consummation of human evolution. And this philosophy defines the one and only process by which it may be attained.

"The Perfect Man is Christ; and Christ is God. This is the birthright and destiny of every human Soul [that does not, by its acts, destroy itself, for God said: "The Soul that sinneth, it shall die"]. It was taught in all the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity but the exoteric creeds of Christendom derived from the parables and allegories in which this doctrine was concealed from the ignorant and the profane, have accorded this Supreme Consummation to Jesus alone and made it obscure or impossible for all the rest of humanity. In place of this, the grandest doctrine ever revealed to man, theologians have set up Salvation by Faith in a man-made creed, and the authority of the church to `bind or loose on earth or in heaven.' Law is thereby annulled, justice dethroned [not merely made blind], merit ignored, effort discouraged and sectarianism, atheism and materialism are the result." -Dr. Buck, Mystic Masonry.

All real Initiation is an internal not an external process. The outer ceremony is dead, and useful only so far as it Symbolizes, illustrates and thereby makes clear the inward changes. "To initiate" means to regenerate and this comes by effort, by trial, by self-conquest, by sorrow, disappointment, failures and a daily renewal of the conflict. It is thus that man must "work out his own salvation," must attain Soul Consciousness and ultimate Immortality. The final consummation of the Initiation is the finding of the Christos, the Center of Light.

The problem, in the first instance, of genuine Initiation, or training in occultism, consists in placing all the operations of the body under the dominion of the Will; in freeing the personality from the dominance of its appetites, passions and lower nature. The idea is not to despise the body but to purify and transmute it; not to destroy the appetites but to elevate and control them. This, in Occult Chemistry (Alchemy) is known as transmutation. This mastery of the lower nature does not change - destroy - the physical or carnal self but subordinates it to that of the real self, the Soul. Without such a transference of authority, the always-desiring lower nature drowns out all higher vibrations, as in an orchestra, if the bass viols and the drums only could be heard, noise rather than harmony would result. Hence the saying: "He that conquers himself is greater than he who taketh a city" and "master thyself and thou mayest be master over all things."

It is the duty of every sincere Mason who is interested in the spirit of the teachings of his Order, carefully to study the philosophy of the masters who have reconstructed the Ancient Wisdom to suit his needs, and, having done so, to guide his actions in all the affairs of life so as to be prepared for his entrance into the Great Lodge Hall where he must give an account of all his deeds and in return receive his "Mark".

Fraternally given, R. Swinburne Clymer "Beverly Hall" Quakertown, PA Oct. 20, 1924.

THE MYSTICISM OF MASONRY

The mystical (therefore Oriental) side of Masonry is not alone the Key to the various religions taught to all men in all ages, from the very beginning of conscious reasoning existence up to the present, but it is, in fact, the repository of religion itself. The Ancient Mysteries of the Secret Schools are so-called because under that title was and yet is conserved all that men have believed and do now believe, all that men have been taught and have experienced through obedience to a super-life, and these Secret Schools therefore conserve the secrets of all inner (mystical or occult) Initiation.

The mysteries have now, as throughout the long ages past, for their foundation, the existence of God, as Jehovah Adonai - the Father of Light and the Immortality of the Soul, which Soul, in the language of the Initiates, is and always must be, an ever- burning Fire, a Light that must be brought into close relationship with the Father of all Light from which it originally came.

The Mysteries recognize man actually as a living temple wherein may become domiciled God, the Father of Light, which Light is life and immortality. This is the same temple concerning which we are taught in the Biblical narrative as well as in exoteric Masonry, that it was made without hands, without sound of hammer or any noise whatsoever.

These Mysteries recognized the Christos, christened the Christ (by the church when it reconstructed part of the lesser mysteries into Christianity) long centuries before the time of the Elder Brother, Jesus, as a living, actuating principle in the Soul of man without which no human may become super-human or Consciously Immortal. These Mysteries had for their object, as they still have, the uniting of the awakened (Spiritually Initiated) men into a Universal Brotherhood in which right (true kindness of heart governed by exact justice) is might; a Brotherhood that exercises benevolence, practices virtue (without a smug complacency) and the arts, and studies coordinately the laws of both Nature and God (as they are and not as foolish man would have them be), ready to accept them as of equal importance in the life of man while on the earth plane.