MYSTICSM OF MASONRY

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 sound of hammer or any noise whatsoever. 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.
All Masonry of the past dealt largely with the ethics and symbolism of the Ancient Mysteries. If the Masons of the present age will but seek for the spirit of the symbolism upon which the degrees are based, the grandest achievements in knowledge and reconstruction will be possible and the mysteries concealed in the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity will be recovered to them. In its ritualism and monitorial lessons, Masonry teaches nothing in morals, in science, in religion or in any other department of human knowledge or human interest, not taught elsewhere in current forms of thought or by the sages of the past. In these directions it has no secrets of any kind. It is in the ancient symbols of Freemasonry that its real secrets lie concealed and these are as densely veiled to the Mason as to any other, unless he has studied the science of symbolism in general and Masonic symbolism in particular. If, lacking a knowledge of the profound meaning of Masonic symbolism and its transcendent interest and importance, Masons have allowed the whole organization not only to fail in all real progress but to degenerate, that is indeed a reproach.
There never was a greater need than at the present time, never so great an opportunity as now, for Masonry to assume its true place among the institutions of man and to force recognition by the simple power of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth, based upon philosophy such as nowhere else exists outside of its ancient symbols. If the majority of Masons do not realize the true significance and value of their possessions, there is all the more need for those who do to speak out, even in the face of discouragement and detraction, and do their utmost to demonstrate the truth. In brief, then, the real secrets of freemasonry lie in its symbols, and the meaning of the symbols reveals a profound philosophy and a Universal Science, that have never been transcended by man.
The force of the obligation is therefore in the obligation and not in the reason. As a matter of fact, the real reason is scientific to the last analysis; scientific to a degree beyond the penetration, up to the present time, of the ‘radiant matter’ of the Roentgen Ray of modern science. Every word, in fact, every letter, creates a vibration and in the vibration there is either life or death as there are but two points, the one point being life and the other death; the pendulum, which in this case, is the type or kind of vibration created by words, must swing to one side or the other.
When we assume an obligation, we call certain forces into being. These forces are held in suspension -or under control- so long as we act in harmony with them. If we betray the spirit, then all control ceases and the created vibrations held in suspension become malicious toward the creator of them and return to rend and destroy. One who is false to an obligation, thereby has loosened a destructive force which can return only to the creator of it. God does not punish man. So-called punishment is the return to himself of the forces created by himself, which on betrayal, return to destroy. In other words, man is not punished for his deeds but by his deeds. It is for this reason that almost forty per cent of those who enter the Secret Fraternity ultimately bring about their own destruction, entering as they do, for utterly selfish, though hidden, reasons. Then because of their inimical spirit, they are unable to secure that which they sought, betray the spirit and purpose of their obligation and so bring upon themselves swift and undefyable punishment.
The whole design of freemasonry as a speculative science is the investigation of Divine Truths. To this great object everything else is subsidiary. The Mason is, from the time of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of Masonic Light, an investigator- a laborer in the quarry and the temple- whose reward is to be truth [wisdom], and all the ceremonies and traditions of the Order tend to this ultimate design. In Speculative Freemasonry there is an advancement from a lower to a higher state- from darkness [ignorance] to light [wisdom]- from death to life- from error to truth- [from mortality into Immortality]. The Mason living and working in the world as his lodge, must seek to raise himself out of it [symbolized by the raising of Hiram from the grave] to that eminence which surmounts it, where alone he can find divine truths.