Charity is one of the core principles of Freemasonry that a new canindate is instructed in, in the very 1st degree. The lesson is taught to us in a very dramatic, almost harsh way. We are told that charity lies at the foundation of Freemasonry.
Freemasonrys mission is to help reduce suffering in all of society. We strive to do this on a global scale. Part of how this is done is by “making good men better” and through charity. Charity isn’t just about handouts. You can be charitable with your time and conduct. We square our actions by the square of virtue.
A small handful of the more active guys in the lodge put some money together to make these complete Thanksgiving dinner baskets. We reached out to a local elementary school to find families in need and delivered the baskets. Though it’s a very small and humble gesture, I believe that no act of kindness is too small. Sometimes that’s all somebody needs to keep going.
It is true that Freemasonry is the parent of all religion, the original worldwide cosmic gnosis, diffused in ancient times to the uttermost ends of the earth. Freemasonry is the Pompeii of prehistoric science. All the Masonic ritual, it’s Egyptian signs, it’s Chaldean grips, it’s Sanskirt passwords, is ancient Hebrew symbols, it’s cabalistic allusions and its historical records are supremely scientific and a survival through long ages, by various underground channels, of the knowledge of the universe which was gained by Sabian astronomers from the temple tops of Chaldea, India and China and recorded by the equally learned geometers and mathematicians of the ancient Orient.
Partially what has inspired me, and led me to the path that I’m on, is watching and learning from the great Symbolists. People that can readily and pragmatically, extract meaning from, and interpret, esoteric/occult/religious symbolism, art and the like. People that approach dreams, the imagination and spirituality, with a more academic approach. I want to be able to see the world as they do, because they see the world in a completely different way than the lay person.
So one of the main focuses in my study is the development of my intuition, with the intention of being able to understand and interpret the universal language of symbolism. As you can imagine, or know from experience, this is very difficult to do. Partially because symbolism is intentionally vague, yet has to be interpreted through a certain framework. You have to train your intuition and study the roots of the symbology academically.
Starting out years ago, I wasn’t able to extract hardly any sort of meaning, from any kind of symbolism and/or art. I’d look at say a tarot card, and get nothing out of it without looking up what everything means, and relying on other people’s interpretation, which defeats the purpose of esoteric/occult symbolism.
I see a lot of people (and this was myself in the past) ask: “What does this image mean?”. No one can tell you what the image means. Esoteric and occult symbolism is intentionally vague to allow the individual to impart their own personal level of interpretation (again, still limited within a certain framework). The subtle aspects of our nature is what makes us more than who we are, more than just an animal, or just material elements in a meat sack. The things that you can’t quite explain, feelings and meanings you can’t articulate, phenomenon that can’t be explained by material science – it’s these aspects of our being that esoteric/occult symbolism is supposed to communicate with. It’s supposed to invite these divine, subtle aspects of our nature to step forward. The meaning has to come from within.
For years I have had the same problem I described above, about not being able to extract meaning from the symbolism. Finally, after many years of research, study and training, I have gotten to a point where I’m starting to intuit meaning from the art. It sort of just hit me out of no where. I guess a piece of the divine spark has touched me. So I’d like to share one of my recent interpretations. Partly because I’m very proud of myself, but majoraly because I want to let people in on how profound this ability is.
Below will be my interpretation of this image. For people not read on hermetic or qabbalistic philosophy, you’ll likely see most of this as gibberish. A quick Google search on the hermetic principle of the “All”, and a search on the alchemical “magnum opus”, will definitely help and for the most part, get you up to speed.
For me the raven represents sort of the most evolved intelligence in the bird kingdom – specifically noting how social and intuitive they are. Plus all the other traditional meanings birds imply. So in other words the most advanced state of consciousness in the bird kingdom.
Seeing the circle, encapsulated (or perhaps “nested”) in the square, the square in the triangle, and triangle in the circle, represents a totality of the structure of our material and divine constitution within the “All” (the hermetic and qabbalistic concept of the All).
I see the first circle as me (us – humans), it’s the “dot” or “point” (perhaps one individual seed of conciousness), radiating out, unfolded in its highest, most divine form, yet still encapsulated in this material realm.
The square, or us in the four fold material realm, is us realized to it’s most divine capacity, partaking or touching the higher, divine, trinitarian, ethereal realm of spirit. So that threefold aspect of divine cosmic spirit is nested within the “limitless and boundless” All (again I’m speaking in hermetic and qabbalistic terms).
So I see this image sort of as a reminder of what is possible with our “baser” self(s). The raven also intimates towards the alchemical philosophers stone or the magnum opus. A reminder that with just base elements you can create something evolved to its highest potential (ie. the raven), something that takes part in, or something that becomes divine. That with mastery over the material and spiritual realms, we can bring ourselves back to unity with the All.
But the deeper meaning this image has for me, I can’t articulate. This is why I love esoteric and occult symbolism. Partly because with just some simple symbols you can convey truths and realities that cannot be articulated. As I stated above, just as the subtle parts of the raven is what makes it divine, and the subtle parts of our nature is what makes us divine, occult symbolism speaks to that higher more ethereal parts of our nature. It stimulates and invites out our divine nature to step forward. The universal language of symbolism is a direct path to diety and brings you closer to divinity with every step. This is a Symbolist’s vision.
I’d like to share a recent breakthrough I’ve had in therapy. You’ll need just a quick background of my symptoms from childhood trauma to understand the break through. Basically I exhibit an irrational rage to any emotionally charged situation. So the closer people are to me and the more emotionally charged the situation, the more I rage. Anger is largely a learned behavior. While my dad wasn’t ever abusive towards us kids, he did have anger issues, he would react with anger to high stress situations. I learned how to react with to the world with anger by watching my father. My abusive mother is what ingrained triggers in me that will provoke an angry response to things that seem to be not at all connected to my trauma.
So these triggers induce a rage in me. What I’ve learned is that I’m not really angry. With humans, anger and rage are almost always a cover for much deeper feelings. In situations that relate to my triggers, I found that what is at the core of my anger is fear. When I get afraid my unconscious reaction is to get angry. The anger and rage completely cover any fear I feel. I know this logically, but I cannot separate the fear and anger internally. I don’t feel afraid at all, just mad, I only know this intellectually because it’s the only thing that explains my over the top reactions I have to everyday minor situations.
Part of my breakthrough is this: In a therapy session, when I was talking about my current feelings, I started to feel the rage build in me. I was guided by my therapist to “walk through” my anger so to speak, to interact with it, ask it questions, investigate it. In doing that, she actually enabled me to separate my anger from my fear. I was able to physically feel my fear separate from my anger in my body. Something that has never happened to me yet, even after a few years of pretty intense therapy.
So in doing this it enabled me to investigate my fear. Again, something I’ve never been able to do. I was able to ask myself what I’m still afraid of after all these years. My mother was physically (and emotionally) abusive when I was a child, back then I was obviously afraid of her in a physically sense. She’s 4 foot 10 inches, so I haven’t been physically scared of her for a long time. What I found is that the same physical fear I used to have, morphed into a fear I have that is wrapped up in guilt. I’m afraid I’m making the wrong decision with my mother. For those that don’t know, about a year ago I cut my mother off completely, like absolutely 0 contact with her at all. Even though my 3 other siblings are still very much involved in her life.
I’m afraid I’m making the wrong choice here. I now have to learn to separate the guilt from the fear. Because the guilt I feel about cutting off my mother is inducing the same fear I felt as a child, which is causing my rage in everyday situations.
That’s the breakthrough I had. Firstly, I was able to actually separate my anger from the fear, to be able to investigate my fear. Then I found that my guilt is wrapped up in my fear, something that is constantly looming over me. I obviously still have a lot more work to do, but now I have a direction to go, I can try to untangle my guilt from my fear.
This is what therapy is for. This is the tough spiritual work one has to go through for real change. You can understand how the human mind works on an intellectual level all you want, but you have to actually put these things to practice in your own mind. You have to have a rich inner life to look into the depths of your soul, to investigate the things that you’re not in control of. This is wisdom. This is gnosis.
This edition of the book is of very high quality paper, illustrations, and binding.
Reading morals and dogma is an epic adventure punctuated by rhapsodic beauty and sheer confusion. Pike and his sources swing our attention to the perennial grear questions: Where do we come from? Who are we? Why are we here? What are the duties of man? What assurance do we have of a Divine Presence in the human spirit? What is the nature of reality? What ethical and moral obligations does one have to the world at large? Is there anything to be learned from human suffering? Can people of different faiths agree on a shared religious duty?
These questions, and many others, agitate the mind, and rivet our attention as much today as they did in Plato or Aristotle’s time, let alone a mere 140 years ago.
The relevance of Morals and Dogma today lies in it’s exploration of the great questions and philosophical dilemmas which have always moved humanity. Particularly for the Mason, this book serves the useful purpose of putting Masonic morality and ethics within the context of the general society. Morals and dogma bids man to think large – to cast aside the petty concerns of everyday life and to be better than he even believes he can be. As initiates of the 30 degree Knight Kadosh are aware, “Strive not to be better than others, but to be better than thyself” Is one of the duties of a Masonic philosopher.
Many people have a time or period in their life where they feel their life lacks purpose, meaning, direction, and take on a nihilistic world view. Some people live like that and never escape. When I started my career after school is when this period came for me – which is a very common time for most people.
I felt lost so to speak and became very nihilistic without any purpose, meaning, and direction. In life there is this philisophic principle or idea about “quality”. This idea of “quality” basically says that there are qualitative distinctions between things and that as humans, we have an instinct to make qualitative distinctions. A qualitative distinction is just saying that “this” is better than “that” or vice-versa. So a qualitative distinction is a judgment.
There is this modern idea that we are to accept ourselves and that we are OK just as we are. Many people (especially the younger generations) are conflating what this means and take it literally. They accept themselves and don’t work towards bettering who they are. Jordan Peterson thinks this is an insane idea and couldn’t be more nihilistic. This is because you are NOT ok, and the reason you’re not ok is because you could be WAY more than what you are. So do you want to be ok as you are? Or do you want to strive towards what’s better?
I’ve come a very long way from my nihilism. I have filled my life with copious amounts of purpose and meaning, and have gained plenty of direction in doing so. The turning point for me was because I knew I wasn’t happy with my current mode of Being. I didn’t consider the manner in which I conducted myself to be sufficient. To do this you have to understand the notion that you CAN make “qualitative distinctions” and that there really is a difference between “good” things and “bad” things, or “great” things and “evil” things etc.. This gives you direction and the possibility of moving upward. You have to maintain the idea that we as humans are insufficient as we are and need the movement upward. So you have to conceptualize something like the “highest good” and then strive towards that.
This is what Christ is in the Bible (the highest good) and why the biblical story gives people so much direction and meaning – something to strive towards. There is an idea in Revelations that the “redeemer” and “judge” are the same thing. Christ comes back with a flaming sword in his mouth to judge the people of earth. Most people were damned and some were saved.
There is no difference between conceptualizing the good and being judged. Because to conceptualize the good and move towards it, means that you have to separate from yourselves all the things that aren’t good and leave them behind. This is why “redeemer” and the “judge” are the same thing.
That’s the problem in the modern world with how we are rejecting qualitative distinctions, to not offend anyone/hurt anyone’s feelings, because we are just fine as we are and don’t want to say one thing is better than the other. Sure, it’s not any fun to be casted off with the damned, but if people are insufficient in their present condition (which seems to be the case, try finding someone who is not) and you deny the possibility of qualitative distinctions, because you want to promote a radical egalitarianism, then you remove the possibility of redemption – because there is no movement towards the good. Sacrificing the “good” for the “equal” is catastrophic, because if we were all equal, we’d all be equally un redeemed and miserable.
So to live a life full of meaning, direction, and purpose, you to understand that you are insufficient as you are. You have to conceptualize the highest good and strive for it – the continuation of our species depends on it.
He is of the opinion that the proper strategy for implementing social change is to stay within your domain of competence – which requires humility, a virtue that is never promoted in our modern culture, a virtue we can hardly even talk about. He defines humility as “you’re probably not as smart as you think you are and you should be careful”.
So the question may be: “ok I should be careful, but I still want to do good and make positive social change.”
So how do you be careful and do good? You try not to step outside the boundaries of your competence and start small. You start with things that you CAN adjust, that you actually DO understand, with things that you can actually fix.
So what Dr. Peterson promotes is that you should restrict your attempts to fix things to what’s at hand. So things about yourself that you can fix, things about yourself that you know aren’t right, not things about you by anyone else’s opinion. Then maybe there’s things you can adjust in your family and that gets really hard. You really have to have yourself together before you start to tackle your family.
It’s hard to put yourself together, it’s really hard to put your family together, so why would you think you can put the world together? The world is obviously far more complicated than you and your family. So if you’re stymied in your attempts to put your house in order, then that should make you very leary about announcing your broad scale plans for revolution.
And this is a very peculiar thing, because people are much more likely to announce their plans for large scale social revolution, than they are to set themselves or their family straight.
Dr. Peterson thinks this is the case because as soon as you try to adjust yourself or family, the system immediately kicks back at you. Where if you announce your plans for large scale social revolution, the lag between the announcement and the kick back is so long that you don’t realize there is any error there. So you can get away with being wrong if nothing falls on you for a while.
It’s not easy to fix things, especially if you’re not committed to it. And you know if you’re committed to it if you’re trying to change yourself first.
“It’s more difficult to rule yourself than to rule the city.” And that’s not a metaphor.
I want to share, what I feel, is a cool piece of Freemasonic history.
The “forget-me-not” flower (Myosotic arvensis – from the Greek, meaning “Mouse’s Ear,” after the shape of its five petals) has a pretty rich history in ancient folklore. The Germans have a few different mythological stories surrounding the origin of flower and how it got its name.
The flower – in general – symbolizes true love, enduring memory, steadfastness, and faithfulness. In 1926, after the first world war in Germany – during their economic crisis – at the German Grand Lodge annual communication, they gave its members a forget-me-not pin, to remind the brethren of their charitable obligations.
During WW2 when Hitler took power, Freemasonry was forbidden and disbanded. The Nazis even had exhibitions showing all the Masonic regalia they had seized. An estimated 80k – 200k Freemasons were executed throughout the Nazi empire.
Masonic lore tells us that during this time of Nazi control, the Grand Lodge of Germany adopted the forget-me-not, not as an emblem of charity, but as a substitute for the square and compass. It was used as a sign of recognition for the brethren, reducing their risk of exposure to the Nazis.
“During the ensuing decade of Nazi power a little blue Forget Me Not flower worn in a Brother’s lapel served as one method whereby brethren could identify each other in public and in cities and concentration camps throughout Europe. The Forget Me Not distinguished the lapels of countless brethren who staunchly refused to allow the symbolic Light of Masonry to be completely extinguished, even under penalty of death.
It was a symbol that masonry, like the flower itself, was not dead, but had merely gone dormant to weather the decade long winter. It was a symbol to its members not to forget each other, or their masonic vows, until spring had come again and the blue of masonry could flourish once more.”
“Legends like these are not told to teach us historical fact; they are meant to teach us enduring truth, or even truths, plural. And the truths of the forget-me-not are these; we must never forget our duty to the poor and distressed. We must never forget to persevere through troubled times, as light and life will always spring anew. We must never forget those who have come before us; the sacrifices they made, and the love that they shared with us. We must never forget our duty to honor their memory, and continue their legacy of brotherly love, relief, and truth. Amor fraternus, levatio, veritas. Forget. Me. Not.”
In the course of one lodge meeting, Freemasonry is a spiritual organization when the chaplain leads the brethren in prayer and asks for the blessing of Diety. It is a guild when the Master of the lodge teaches the new Mason the symbolic uses of stonemason’s tools. It becomes a school of instruction when the new brother learns about the importance of the 7 liberal arts and sciences. At other moments, it is an amateur theater company when the ritual is performed. The lodge becomes a men’s social club when meeting for dinner and fellowship. It becomes a charitable group when relief is provided to distressed brothers, their families or the local community perlocal community. It is also a business association when members with similar interests share ideas. The lodge resembles a family when fathers and sons, strangers and friends bond as ‘brothers’, and it is a community league when volunteers are needed for a project.
Traditionally, the primary purpose of the ritual is to educate the candidate. The rituals are closer to a play/drama/performance than anything else.
The ceremonial lore revolves around the period during which the First Temple at Jerusalem was built by King Solomon. King Solomon. The stories build from a peaceful and regal beginning which explains the inspiration for and construction of the Temple, leading up to a cataclysmic event which has come to symbolize the central morality of Speculative Freemasonry.
Throughout the series of short plays, you’ll come across dozens of metaphors, imparting the moral criteria which a Freemason is expected to aspire to. The ritual is composed of exquisitely crafted language, and for most masons the messages go in and stay in, enabling them to live a more positive and fulfilled live.
Rick Smith
Many avoid Freemasonry because they feel it would be “too religious” for them (myself included, until I learned more about the fraternity). If you have no issues with attending a church wedding or funeral, or being a Godfather for someone’s new baby, you should not meet any greater religious demands in craft masonry. Masons do not worship in craft lodges; that is the role of the Church.
The obvious overlap between Religion and Freemasonry is morality, which both teach as a primary function. The key difference in their approach is that fundamental religion tends towards ‘God-fearing morality’ whilst craft masonry speaks more to the Moral Compass, and the idea that your behavior in life should be geared towards preserving the stability of society and the happiness of everyone around you. For the purpose of learning and executing Masonic craft ritual, religion has no direct relevance whatsoever.
The say that “Politics is showbiz for ugly people!” For the rest of us, there’s Masonry. Ritual’s primary purpose is to implant the moral metaphors of Masonic teaching. That’s unequivocal.
Rick Smith
Being initiated into the 1st degree of Freemasonry, passed to the 2nd degree, and raised to the 3rd degree of Master Mason, does not at all make you instantly enlightened. You’re more or less just obligated into keeping the “secrets” of Masonry at that point. Being the candidate, going through the three degrees (plays), you’re really not participating, you’re just being instructed and walked through. So actually learning the ritual, being engaged and involved, actually playing a role in the ritual (drama/play), is what enables you to really learn the metaphors/teachings. It really is something you’ll be taking in and learning for a lifetime – and that’s the point. While also finding fulfillment in having an active role in passing down these teachings, bettering yourself, your brothers, and community.
So in short: As I’ve stated before, there really is no secrets in Freemasonry, all the “secret” knowledge is passed down through the ritual. This secret knowledge being universal teachings we all know and live by as humans. The only real secret being how this knowledge is delivered, via the ritual.
The main reason for the secrecy is because it’s like spoiling a movie. If I tell you what the ritual is, everything that’s in it and how it’s delivered, then when you experience it yourself it won’t have the same impact and effect as it would if you didn’t know anything about it. Knowing all that beforehand would totally ruin the experience and the effect it is supposed to have on your psyche.
ErudiTarot 