To Be The Heroes We are Supposed to Be

By: Robert G. Davis, 33*, Grand Cross

Like the archetypal hero, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

                     Horatius Cocles, a 1586 engraving by Hendrick Goltzius

One of the powerful icons of antiquity is displayed in a section of a votive relief at the Louvre in Paris. From the Hellenistic period, 1st century, B.C., the sculpture is titled "Offering to the Dioscuri." It represents Castor and Pollux, the most famous twins, dioscuri, of Greek mythology, riding magnificent steeds across the heavens. According to the myth, one of the twins is mortal, the other immortal. One represents the divine principle within us; the other signifies the energy in life which we must eternally encounter and transform. As the story goes, the twins spend alternative nights in the heavens and in the netherworld seeking, through their experiences, the light of tomorrow.

We commonly think of them as the zodiac sign Gemini. In astronomy, they are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini.

                              "Offering to the Dioscuri" - louvre Puseum, Paris

Contemplating the imagery of this myth, we can see the twins as heaven and earth, day and night, past and future. Also, they represent the tension of opposites within ourselves at the very point of our transition from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. Thus, this relief carving offers a pictorial description of the classic journey of the hero—the journey each of us is to make in life. It is an uncertain, often dreadful, and always dangerous night journey into the deepest reaches of ourselves. But through this journey, this confrontation with ourselves and our experience, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

Only a hero, which we all can be, can wage such a battle. For it is only when we have an unrelenting resolve to overcome our deepest fears that we are enabled to know ourselves and fulfill our true potential. We labor and strive and learn in this world so that we may hope to live perfect in the dawn of eternity. That is the quest of the hero.

Of course, the symbolic meaning of the "Offering to the Dioscuri" is the same as depicted in Masonic ritual by the young Fellowcraft as he passes between the pillars of the Middle Chamber. At that moment in his life, he begins his journey into the greater mysteries which will enable him to become transformed into his better, truer self.

In contemporary Masonic symbolism, the Fellowcraft is the exemplar of the Gemini twins. His spirit is integrated by the dual nature of the pillars. Everything which represents the opposites in his life—passion and reason, aggression and cooperation, weakness and strength, anger and compassion, selfishness and charity—he takes with him on his subsequent quest toward self-improvement. Every emotion, experience, and lesson he learns on his own life journey, represented by the winding stairs, he integrates into his being.

He has only to make this hero's journey—this path of initiation, separation, and return—to see the Light of Lights and understand why Masonry is itself a timeless Truth, like the myth frozen in a piece of stone from two millennia past.

In the Scottish Rite (the college course in Freemasonry), our hero's journey is reinforced time and again. In the 13°, the candidate makes the descent into the cavern of his own life to discover the Lost Word. In the 18°, he finds, from his own journey through darkness, the light of the world. And in the 30°, he becomes the Dioscuri yet again, this time in the symbol and form of the black and white double-headed eagle.

Thus, when he becomes a Master of the Royal Secret, if he has taken seriously the path of the Rite, he is enabled to look back to the pillars of symbolic Masonry with new eyes—the eyes of a hero—and marvel at what Joseph Campbell has called the "song of the soul's high adventure," the path of his own self-meaning.

Perhaps it is really not so hard to be a hero. Maybe we need only to dream of a magnificent steed that will carry us aloft to a castle that knows no East nor West, but reveals the treasure of our soul's deepest longing.

Or, as Freemasons maybe we need only to know in what we are engaged--to be the heroes we are all supposed to be.

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The View from the Master's Chair

By: Wor. Jason E. Marshall

(Published in the January 2014 edition of Living Stones Magazine)

In 2014 I was truly blessed and honored to have served as the 5th Worshipful Master of Lodge Veritas No. 556, in Norman, Oklahoma. I, like almost every current or past master that I’ve ever spoken to, had mixed emotions about the position after my installation. On one hand, there was a sense of satisfaction, in that I felt as if I had accomplished a goal, or finally reached a summit that I had been working towards, especially given the fact that I had been a blue lodge officer for the entirety of my Masonic career. I began the chairs at my mother lodge, before leaving my mother lodge to focus exclusively on Lodge Veritas when it was created in 2009. There was also a sense of urgency given that unless I served a second term, I only had one year to accomplish the agenda and goals that I had been putting together for the previous three years. Finally, there was also a since of isolation, given that in a very real way the Worshipful Master is on an island in the east, and all eyes symbolically and literally look to him for direction. Above all though, there was a feeling of duty and responsibility that I owed to not only my lodge, but the fraternity as a whole.

My first meeting as Worshipful Master was surreal in many ways. First, my lodge performs a fairly unique entrance (at least for my state), where the entire lodge and visitors enter the lodge together by performing clockwise circumambulations. There are several reasons for this, which include: ceremonially cleansing the sacred space, establishing a sense of group intention regarding the work at hand (Egregore), and on a practical level it is convenient to have all of the brethren come in at the same time in order to make sure that all cellphones are off, everyone is properly clothed, everyone is actually ready to start, signal an end to casual conversations, etc. During our circumambulations all members and guests make the first circumambulation together, then the non-officers and guests fall off after passing the Tyler's doors, then non-dais officers fall off on the second circumambulation, and then finally during the third full circumambulation the dais officers (J.W., S.W., and W.M.) take their stations. During our circumambulations the Worshipful Master is always part of the group, that is until the S.W. takes his position in the west, which then leaves the Worshipful Master to finish the journey eastward to his seat all alone. It was a very surreal feeling to be the person who not only travels the furthest in the circumambulations, but it was poignant that the journey is completed alone.

In talking with brethren, I have jokingly called this last stage of the Master’s circumambulation the “checkered mile”, given that our lodge room has checkered tile; however, upon reflection I’m not so sure that was just a joke. Looking back on my Masonic career I’ve accomplished a lot of things, some with the aid of others, and some on my own where I have had to travel a solitary path. I am pleased to say that I have done a lot of things right, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve also made mistakes, and I still carry the emotional scars from several big mistakes. Therefore, the checkered pavement, and the last checkered mile that I walked towards my station in the East really reflected the usual symbolism that the checkered pavement represents the foundational level of Masonic work and the good and evil (Light and Dark) elements of life. In the journey towards M.L. we are each traveling Eastward, and along that path there will be ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies; however, we each have the choice to decide whether the checkered pavement will make us bitter, or if we will use it to make us better. We will also face times in our journey, where we must push forward on our journey alone, if even for a short period of time.

Upon taking my seat, I was struck by the dramatic view of the altar which was dimly lit by the candlelight of the lodge room, and framed by the smoke rising from the pot of incense in front of it. While I had a similar view in the west, there was a very different feeling viewing it from the oriental chair. I think the difference in feeling was in large part due to the Master’s position of being the spiritual heart of the Lodge, as well as the center of manifested power within the lodge. As a Senior Warden, I had to react to the will of the Worshipful Master, while as the Worshipful Master the other officers, and brethren as a whole, had to react to my will and pleasure. I don’t say this in an egomaniacal way, because there is a great deal of responsibility that comes with the power instilled in a Worshipful Master. The Worshipful Master’s position represents the sun, Light, wisdom, and King Solomon himself. Therefore, the Master is not only in charge of the organizational aspects of the lodge, but he is the transmitter and facilitator of Light within the lodge, and as such he has a tremendous responsibility.

The power of the Worshipful Master isn’t absolute, because he must still rely on the other officers to perform the work of the lodge. First, the power to open and close the lodge flows from the Master to the Senior Warden, who then communicates the Master’s order (Transmits the power) to the Junior Warden, who then transmits the order to the craft. This is similar to how the Tree of Life works in the Kabbalistic tradition. Each Kabbalistic world contains ten sephirot, which are arraigned in the familiar Kabbalistic Tree of Life pattern. The Tree of Life acts like a circuit board of spiritual energy. The power begins at the top sephirot Keter, which then flows from one sephirot to another until finally ending in the lowest sephirot Malkuth, which then manifests its energy into the world in which it resides. The sephirot act like switches and relays on an electric circuit board that react in specific ways as energy moves through them. In the same way, the duties of officers and members manifest as the orders (power) of the Master travels through the lodge.

In order for there to be an orderly lodge, the pillars of wisdom, strength and beauty must also be present, and once again the Master must rely on others for these to manifest. The Worshipful Master represents the pillar of wisdom, yet he must still rely on the Senior Warden (strength) and the Junior Warden (beauty). Basically, when you have wisdom to contrive and strength to support, then you will have beauty to adorn, and if even one of the pillars is absent, incomplete, or disharmonious, the other three will surely fail. Therefore, the Master must take care to ensure harmony and unity of purpose among all of the officers and brethren, especially between himself and the Wardens.

Finally, after the closing charges, my lodge meets at the altar for a chain of union, which is followed by our lodge song, and then finally we circumambulate counter-clockwise out of the lodge room to close the sacred space. The chain of union is a reminder for me of the bonds that unite us into a sacred band of brothers, this bond can be strong or weak, depending on the commitment and work that formed and maintains those bonds.

The counter-clockwise circumambulation that I led out of the lodge room was a reminder for me that as the Worshipful Master I was the representative of the lodge 24/7 during my tenure, even if I was outside of the tyled lodge. Therefore, anything that I did, whether good or ill, would reflect back on the Lodge. I think this was the most important and unnerving thing as Master, because while running the meeting was relatively simple, and with planning relatively drama free, it was a bit unnerving to realize that my every action inside or outside of a tyled lodge was a reflection of my lodge as a whole. Accordingly if I took an unpopular stance my entire lodge, whether they liked it or agreed with it, would be ostensibly taking the same stance. Therefore, as Master I had to take special care to utilize and reflect the teachings of our fraternity in all aspects of my life, so that I not only reflected positively on my lodge, but the fraternity as a whole, which has blessed my life in so many ways, and which granted me the opportunity to lead my beloved Lodge.

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Thank you for reading The Laudable Pursuit!

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Esoteric Roots of the Masonic Due Guards

By: Ian B. Tuten

                                                                                                             Photo Credit: Wor. Matthew D. Anthony

This post is an abridged adaptation of an article I wrote entitled “Kabbalistic Roots of the Masonic Modes of Recognition in the Craft Degrees,” in which I explore some of the connections (as I see them) that exist between certain Masonic modes of recognition, and certain aspects of Kabbalistic though. That paper goes much more in depth than I will here, but I would like to share some of my findings with the world, since I find them fascinating. As a disclaimer, I will say up front that I will not break any of my obligations, but rather I plan to only allude to signs and symbols that any Master Mason should already be familiar with.

Freemasonry, we’re told, is a “peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” Generally speaking, how each brother of the Craft decides to interpret those symbols and apply them to his own life is largely up to him. This practice of showing symbols and allowing the initiate to interpret them dates back to the Greo-Roman mystery schools. The word mystery comes from the Greek word myo (μύω) and means “to close or shut.” From this same root comes the word mystes (μύστης), which means “[an] initiate”. So, to speak of “mystery schools” and to speak of the “initiatic tradition” is to speak of one and the same thing.

When I first began learning about the initiatic tradition, before I became a Freemason, I found it somewhat hard to comprehend. Why would showing symbols and metaphors be more effective than just telling someone whatever secrets or moral truth they wanted to impart? It dawned on me one day, that the same lack of communicative ability exists with us today, even outside of esoteric initiation. If you’ve ever though of something, said it, and then thought, “that didn’t come out quite like I meant,” then you’ve experienced the same inability of language to convey certain ideas. For that matter, could you explain to someone what salt tastes like, without using the word “salty?” I would venture that it’s nearly impossible. Though I don’t remember who told it to me, I always have in my mind a certain maxim: once a specific thought is translated into words, it ceases to be the original thought. Nobody understood this more than the initiatics. Metaphors, symbols, allegories — these express ideas far more succinctly and efficiently than words ever could.

This is somewhat contradicted by the original rabbis and practitioners of a Jewish mystical system called Kabbalah (Hebrew qabalah, קבלה, meaning “reception”). Whereas the initiatics in their mystery schools believed that words could not convey ideas sufficiently, Kabbalah teaches that everything know as existent is actually made up of words. There is no separation between what something is called and what something is. The Sefer Yetzirah (ספר יצירה, literally “book of creation”), the earliest known book about language as it related to the Kabbalah, explains how the God of Israel created existence using a series of words, and how those words and their associations came to become the Hebrew alphabet. This is not to say that the original progenitors of Kabbalah were so bold as to assume that their God spoke Hebrew as we understand it today, but keep in mind that words are nothing more than a series of vibrations from the throat, and everything that exists is nothing more than vibrations, down to the atomic level. Letters and words are symbols, metaphors for these vibrations of creation. This theory can be backed up by John 1:1, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is worth noting that the Hebrew word used for “the Word” here, ha-dabar (הדבר) refers to a spoken word, as opposed to written.

Now, my point in all of this, is to explain that even letters can be symbolic of greater truths. According to the Sefer Yetzirah, every Hebrew letter is connected with a certain aspect of Deity, and therefore with a certain aspect of creation, with a number, with a concept, &c. In studying the due guards and penal signs, and trying to make a connection with Kabbalistic thought, I initially had some trouble connecting the two. It was only after using a technique of the Illustrious Brother Albert Pike, and looking instead at the Samaritan version of the Hebrew alphabet, that everything began to fall into place. When the letters fell into place, the concepts behind them made too much sense to disregard.

What I’ve found is that the due guards all represent, in shape, certain letters. The Entered Apprentice due guard resembles the Samaritan letter kaaf, analogous to the Hebrew letter kaf (כ).

This name, kaaf, literally means “palm,” representative of manual work, which is quite appropriate given the teachings of the first degree. We are to learn to control our physical aspects by the gauge and the gavel, a teaching that is underscored by this letter’s association with Jupiter, a symbol that is alchemically associated with balance and equilibrium. We are to improve ourselves physically, by the work of the palm. The penal sign of the first degree associates it with the first triad of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life [note: a subject I explore in the full article, however not in this post], the beginning of divine emanation, yet incomplete.

The Fellowcraft due guard resembles the Samaritan letter labad, analogous to the Hebrew letter lamed (ל).

The name, labat, among other things, means “to teach” or “to discipline.” Again, this meaning should immediately prove apropos. The letter is also important because when combined with the Hebrew letter alef (א), we can create either the word “God” (אל, el), or the word “not” (לא, la) – an interesting juxtaposition of the everything and nothing. As Fellowcrafts, we stride the divide between darkness and light. We are neither fully illuminated nor full ignorant of knowledge. Lamed is also a title given to scholars and teachers, which all Fellowcrafts should strive to be – intellect and study being the central tenet of the degree. Finally, this letter’s association is with the astrological sign Libra, the scales. It represents balance, decision, a certain maturity of thought that can only come with proper study. The penal sign of the second degree associates it with the second triad of the Kabbalistic Tree, imparting further divine inspiration, though still incomplete.

Finally, the due guard of the Master Mason degree may not resemble its Hebrew counterpart, but when compared to the Samaritan equivalent, one can certainly see the resemblance to the Samaritan letter yut. This letter is analogous to the Hebrew letter yod (י), which all Scottish Rite Masons especially will  know as symbolically important.

This letter’s name, yut, literally means “hand,” but has a different connotation than the letter kaaf (“palm”). This time the hand is not demonstrative of physical labor, but the idea of the creation coming from manual work. The Hebrew letter yod is a metaphorical flame; when blown upon it flickers and shifts and creates all the other letters. Beyond this, the letter yod is the “G,” the initial letter of the divine name, of special significance to all Freemasons. The final penal sign represents the lower triad of the Kabbalistic Tree, with full divine spirit, ready to deliver to mankind, as we are taught to do through and by the Craft.

There is almost no end to the associations and symbolism that one can derive from the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at a cursory glance, it should become quite evident that these three letters don’t merely visually resemble the due guards of the degrees. Moreover, when combined with the symbolism of the Kabbalah, a whole new aspect of symbolism and light is opened up, and we learn that much more about our Craft and about ourselves.

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Thank you for reading The Laudable Pursuit!

If you enjoyed this piece, please feel free to share it on social media sites and with your Lodge.

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