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Rites of Passage, the Mysteries and Freemasonry
Campbell says, “The idea of Eranos (Greek for shared feast) was a roundtable of ideas, a meeting place of East and West. The common theme for that year, proposed by Frau Frobe, was “Yoga and Meditation in the East and West.” The lectures were delivered in German, English, and Italian from the contrasting standpoints of the several speakers. The members of the audience who’d brought portions of their own opened these at the numerous café tables in nearby Ascona and immediately the shared feast, which for over seventy years has annually renewed itself, began revealing its power to shape, as well as be shaped by, the men and women who made it.” So each year there has been a meeting in which scholarly papers were delivered, somewhat similar to what is delivered here with the Masonic Rosicrucians. Joseph Campbell was asked by the Bollengen Foundation to edit six volumes of Eranos papers. Volume 1 is Spirit and Nature: Volume 2, The Mysteries: Volume 3, Man and Time: Volume 4,Spiritual Disciplines: Volume 5, Man and Transformation: Volume 6, The Mystic Vision. These books are, or should be, available in the public libraries and are well worth studying. I am fortunate to own a set of the Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East with historical surveys of the chief writings of each nation. This is in 14 volumes beginning with the sacred writings of Babylonia and Assyria and extending on through to the apocryphal books of the Bible. My set I also possess a set of Plutarch’s Lives and Miscellanea , the so-called Dryden’s translation. Pike comments, “Plutarch tells us that the philosophy of the Egyptian Priests was, ‘abstruse and hidden,’ a philosophy for the most part involved in fable and allegory and exhibiting only dark hints and obscure resemblances of the truth. And this much,” he says, “even the priests themselves insinuate to us in many instances particularly in those sphynxes, which they seem designedly to have placed before their Temples, as types of the enigmatical nature of their theology. To this purpose likewise, I purchased my first copy of Morals and Dogma in a used bookstore at the age of 17 and have been studying it ever since. Since then I’ve acquired many of Pike’s works and also the Scottish Rite Research Society’s interpretive papers such as Dr. Hutchens Glossary to Morals and Dogma and Hutchens and Monson’s The Bible in Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma and various other books. Recently published by the SRRS is Pike’s Esoterika, and Lectures on Masonic Symbolism. Both of these volumes, along with Pike’s Book of the Words contain valuable esoteric keys. I must also The number of authors and their books who have touched on our subject are legion, ranging from Herodotus, Plato and Plotinus, through Manly Palmer Hall’s many works. I will include a bibliography of suggested titles at the end of this paper for those interested in further study. For the format of this paper, I shall briefly cover “Rites of Passage” from “primitive” man through its apparent demise in modern society. There will then be a section on the ancient Mysteries and what little we know of them; a section on Freemasonry as a philosophical descendent of the Mysteries and, if time permits, a synthesis of the three topics and a look at a possible future. Rites of Passage Briefly, at about the age of twelve, the boy is led into the bush where he is rubbed head to foot in human blood. A few weeks later, his nose is pierced and a feather inserted into the hole. At this point, the boy is given a special name. Two or three years later, the boy is inducted into the mystery of manhood. The boy is mournedvby his family and the entire clan as though he is dead. He is carried at night into the forest again,vwhere he hears the sacred songs for the first time. The forest is a symbol of the beyond, and we shall meet with it in numerous initiate rites and mysteries of primitive peoples. But there are other indications that the boy is dying, that his mode of being is undergoing a radical change. Next day each of a number of men opens a vein in his arm and lets his blood flow into a vessel. Completely naked, blindfolded, his ears stuffed with grass, in order that he may see nothing and hear nothing, the boy sits beside the fire in the midst of the smoke and is made to drink a large quantity of blood. He is convinced that the blood will kill him, but happily he perceives after a while that the kinsman conducting his initiation are also drinking the blood. As the boy remained seated on the grass with a shield on his knees, the men approach one after another and let the blood gushing from their open veins fall on his head. One of his relatives then gives him a belt made of human hair. The entire group returns to the camp where the women and relatives mourn him again. After the ritual meal, the neophyte is given a fire stake [sic] already lighted and he is told that this stick will enable him to kindle a fire in which his genital organs will be consumed. The next day there begins a journey that will last 24 days and involve a large number of ceremonies on which we shall not dwell. The boy is accompanied by some of his male kinsman. During this ritual journey he must not talk, but may at most emit a special sound to attract attention and then suggest what he needs by gestures. During the whole time of his novitiate (that is, as long as he is a malalu, a boy being initiated), he cannot move unless he is led by the hand; his head is always lowered, and according to the reports of observers, his face is totally devoid of expression. “If it were not for the readiness with which he responds to instructions,” writes Paddington, “the impression created would be that of a low grade mental defective.”
In most societies the female undergoes a similar rite of passage which is usually based around the onset of mensus. With the onset of her first period, she is no longer a girl but becomes a woman. In primitive societies, this is usually accompanied by a month of isolation and many taboos of contact with men. When she comes forth from her hut after her period of seclusion, she is then a woman and eligible to marry, etc. and is taught by the women of the tribe the things that a woman In medieval European societies, a rite of passage might be that of a boy becoming an esquire and learning to serve a knight. At that point he ceased to play with swords and began to learn the art of combat. He learned to maintain and care for the horse and arms of the knight. He learned to hunt Until very recently a young man was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. A farmer’s son would become a farmer in his own right; a cobbler’s son would learn to make shoes; the Tailor’s boy would learn to sew clothes. In recent times even that expectation and rite of passage has disappeared. This is reflected in our modern times where both parents work and the children become latchkey kids; when very young being taken care of by childcare or a babysitter, if the parents can afford it, or being raised by television if they cannot. This has resulted in a lot of children who do not relate to their parents, to the rapidly diminishing workplace, or anything else. What they do relate to, as in the kibbutz, is their peers. Thus, we wind up with a situation where the kids want to join a gang of their peers and they look up to those gangs for guidance. One of the results is that when the gang chief tells the kid to go out and knock over an old man and take his wallet, or to shoot a rival gang member, that’s what he does, without thought, without care for the elderly person or anything else. He just does what he is told, to gain acceptance. When he’s done that, then he is accepted as truly a man and a member of the gang. Another problem which I believe is showing itself in this modern day and age, is that the children who have been raised on video games and television not only have difficulty relating to real life versus fantasy, but by the time a child is 10 or 12 years old he has, on the video screen, killed and eviscerated hundreds or thousands of “enemy warriors” or “aliens.” This seems to have desensitized the last generation or two to violence in the abstract. I think we’re seeing a lot of PTSD because these young men have blithely gone into battle with no knowledge of what it truly was all about. The video games leave out the stench of suppurating wounds and rotting corpses, crawling through mud made up in equal quantities of blood and water and urine, the screams of wounded and tortured humans, the look in a person’s eyes as you pull the trigger. These experiences tend to take the glory and the machismo out of the experience of war and leaves us with a lot of haunted young men. This is a rite of passage we could perhaps do without. So what we are defining as a rite of passage is that point in time where a young man or young woman graduates from one stage of life to the next. It may be formal or informal, structured or chaotic, but it is a change.
Many of the writers on the subject of the Mysteries and the Goddess, and other studies of the origins of our beliefs are echoed by Pike in his Preface to Morals and Dogma. “The teachings of these Readings are not sacramental, so far as they go beyond the realm of Morality into those of other domains of Thought and Truth. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Right uses the word “Dogma” in its true sense, of doctrine, or teaching; and is not dogmatic in the odious sense of that term. Everyone is entirely free to reject and dissent from whatsoever herein may seem to him to be untrue or unsound. It is only required of him that he shall weigh what is taught, and give it a fair hearing and unprejudiced judgment. Of course the, the ancient theosophic and philosophic speculations are not embodied as part of the doctrines of the Rite; but because it is of interest and profit to know what the Ancient Intellect thought upon these subjects, and because nothing so conclusively proves the radical difference between our human and animal nature, as the capacity of the human mind to entertain such speculations in regard to itself and the deity.” The Ancient Mysteries When this young man goes alone, naked and unarmed, into the wilderness there is an excellent chance that he will not survive, for he is dependent upon his as yet untried abilities as a woodsman and warrior. During his period of fasting, there is a possibility that he may starve to death or die of thirst before he achieves his vision quest and learns of his totem. The metaphysical portion of the vision quest we may consider as an introduction to the mysteries. The vision quest, the attempt to make contact with the Godhead and, if you will, to understand your place in God’s universe and to shape your destiny accordingly, is not limited to primitive societies. An example of the vision quest comes to mind when we read of Jesus going off to wander In really ancient times when worship of the Goddess was commonplace and strife was much less common than it is now, the possibility is that the mysteries were not “mysterious” but were part of everyday life. It was not until the male-dominated societies arose and their “gods” overcame the
Time and space forbid our looking deeply into shamanism and similar beliefs, but the Fifth Danish Thule Expedition (1921-24) across Arctic North America brought explorer Knud Rasmussen into contact with, and into the confidence of, several shamans across the far North. Najagnek was “Yes, a power that we call Sila, one that cannot be explained in so many words. A strong spirit, the upholder of the universe, of the weather, in fact all life on Earth – so mighty that his speech to man comes not through ordinary words, but through storms, snowfall, rain showers, the tempests of the sea, through all the forces that man fears, or through sunshine, calm seas or small, innocent, playing children who understand nothing. When times are good, Sila has nothing to say to mankind. He has disappeared into his infinite nothingness and remains away as long as people do not abuse life but have respect for their daily food. No one has ever seen Sila. His place of sojourn is so mysterious that he is with us and infinitely far away at the same time.” Dr. Rasmussen added, “Najagneq’s words sound like an echo of the wisdom we admired in the old shamans we encountered everywhere in our travels – in harsh King William land or in Aua’s Festive hut at Hudson Bay, or in the primitive Eskimo Igjugarjuk, whose pithy maxim was:
Campbell goes on to say,
To further illustrate our point, let us look back in time and place, perhaps to our antecedents. We could pick ancient India, Babylon, or a number of other civilizations, but let us stay with ancient Egypt, as most people are at least somewhat familiar with it. Egypt was a highly developed civilization, with a mystery religion from which the popular religion descended. Film and novels have made Egypt a place of whip and slavery, yet careful study shows that, for much of its history, it held to the precepts of wisdom, love and caring. For many centuries, Pharoah was the guardian of his people, selected by God to rule and govern. He was advised by the priesthood and by the Lords of his domain, all working together for the good of the country and the people. He was answerable to God for his actions and at his death, his deeds were weighed against the feather of truth.
Freemasonry Looking at Masonry, which they have been told is, “a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols,” they are eager to move on and become fully enlightened. In the Second Degree, they learn that it is a “Progressive Science, taught by degrees only.” In the Third Degree, Freemasonry has been around for a long time. One can find references to it by name in old documents from the 1300's and 1400's. We all know of the Grand Lodge charter in 1717, but when one studies further back in history, he finds much Masonic thought in writings and poetry, going My personal feeling is that, when some men first sat around the fire outside their cave, looked up at the stars and began to question, Masonry was born. Not formally as a Lodge, or a ritual, but in the spirit of Masonry, the endless quest to better ourselves and to do good to our Brothers and Fellows, and to mankind at large. There is a tremendous amount of printed material about Freemasonry and its concordant bodies. There is enough for a lifetime or more of study by a dedicated scholar. Our so-called secrets, the ritual, the tokens, grips and words have been “exposed” many times by anti-Masons, but no one has ever been able to expose the true secrets of Masonry, for they reside in the heart and mind and are probably interpreted differently by each man. Walter L. Wilmshurst (1867- 1939) was a Master Mason and a mystic who spent most of his life studying and learning the esoteric parts of Masonry. He said that many Masons, of venerable age, covered with honors and offices, were still but Entered Apprentices. Others attained the true degree of Master early in their careers, without attaining the honors and offices. I would like to include some excerpts from his book, The Masonic Initiation which followed his seminal The Meaning of Masonry, both of which I would recommend to the aspiring Mason, to be read and studied in depth. Both books, along with many others of value are available for
Elementary morals can be and are learned in the outside world and must be learned there, if one is to be merely a decent member of society. The possession of "strict morals," as every Mason knows, is a preliminary qualification for entering the Order. A man does not enter it to acquire them after he has entered. It is true he finds the Order insistent on obedience to the Moral Law and emphasising closer cultivation of certain ethical virtues, as is essential to those, who propose to enter upon a course of spiritual science and this is the primary, more obvious sense in which the term "system of morality" is used. “But the word "morality," in its original and also in its Masonic, connotation, has a further meaning, one carrying the same sense as it does when we speak of a ‘morality play.’ A ‘morality’ is a literary or dramatic way of expressing spiritual truth, putting it forward allegorically and in accordance with certain well settled principles and methods (mores). It is the equivalent of a usage or ‘use,’ as ecclesiastics speak of ‘the Sarum use’ or liturgy. In the same sense Plutarch's Moralia is largely a series of disquisitions upon the mores of the ancient Religious Mystery schools. “A ‘system of morality,’ therefore, means secondarily ‘a systematised and dramatised method of moral discipline and philosophic instruction, based on ancient usage and long established practice.’ The method in question is that of Initiation. The usage and practice is that of allegory and symbol, which it is the Freemason's duty, if he wishes to understand his system, to labour to interpret and put to personal application. If he fails to do so, he still remains and the system deliberately intends, that he should be in the dark about the Order's real meaning and secrets, although formally a member of it. The Order, the morality system, merely guarantees its own possession of Truth. It does not undertake to impart it save to those, who labour for it. For Truth and its real arcana can never be communicated directly, save through allegory and symbol, myth and sacrament.” He goes on to describe the ancient process of initiation and what was required of the candidate to even gain admission “Masonry, then as a ‘system of morality’ as thus defined is neither a Religion nor a Philosophy, but at once a Science and an Art, a Theory and a Practice and this was ever the way in which the Schools of the Ancient Wisdom and Mysteries proceeded. They first exhibited to the intending disciple a picture of the Life process. They taught him the story of the soul's genesis and descent into this world. They showed him its present imperfect, restricted state and its unfortunate position. They indicated that there was a scientific method by which it might be perfected and regain its original condition. This was the Science half of their systems, the programme or theory placed in advance before disciples, that they might have a thorough intellectual grasp of the purpose of the Mysteries and what admission to them involved. Then followed the other half, the practical work to be done by the disciple upon himself, in purifying himself, controlling his sense nature, correcting natural undisciplined tendencies, mastering his thought, his mental processes and will, by a rigorous rule of life and art of living. When he showed proficiency in both the theory and the practice and could withstand certain tests, then but not before he was allowed the privilege of Initiation, a secret process, conferred by already initiated Masters or experts, the details of which were never disclosed outside the process itself.” From this standpoint then, to truly be initiated into the mysteries of the craft, we must transcend our earthly needs and desires. Those may remain as part of our outer shell, as it were, but we must be able to look within the mysteries and within ourselves, then apply the tools of initiation to chip away the superfluities of our earthly lives; to cut the rough stone, level, plumb and square, polish it with love and care, so it can truly fit into that “eternal house not made by hands.” Conversely, if we build with the unshaped stone of our earthly being, we become as cowans, who built rough stone walls to divide fields and other such crude structures. While recognized for their contribution, they were not considered eligible to receive the mysteries of the stonemason to create beauty and stability. Lodge should be a place of perfection of ritual, dissemination of light and, after lodge, discussion amongst Brothers of what was learned and how it applies to their own lives and development. If we can hold on to the “Mystic Tie” in the midst of a materialistic society that counts virtue in dollars and power, then we can remain viable; a vehicle for true seekers to undergo their own rite of passage and an initiation, to be raised into a new, inner, life of enlightenment and growth. As mentioned at the start of this paper, there are thousands of volumes, not necessarily Masonic, that explore the subjects of symbolism and how it relates to our own development. Plutarch, Campbell, Jung, Graves, Russell, Coppleston, Durant, Toynbee and many more. Masonic writers also are legion; Albert Pike, Wilmshurst, Manly Palmer Hall, Mackey, Gould; Coil, Leadbeater, Claudy, Hutchinson, McBride, Hutchens, Morris, De Hoyos and on... There are the transactions of the various research societies; Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Southern California Research Society, Walter F. Meier Lodge of Research No. 281, Philalethes Society, Scottish Rite Research Society’s Heredom. As a matter of fact, when trying to verify the publication date of a book for this paper, I stumbled onto a site, the Victorian Lodge of Research No. 218, UGLV, which had a paper by a reverend brother on this same subject! Being a minister, his approach is slightly different, but the article is excellent and thought provoking. Here is the link. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/6779/rite.html and I’d strongly suggest you look it up. The transactions of these various bodies are filled with articles by scholars who are constantly attempting to broaden our horizons. The more one experiences, the more one seeks, the deeper he goes into the meaning of life and, most importantly, his own meaning. Hence we find ourselves looking once again at the words carved above the door of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, "Know Thyself." If we continue on in our studies by entering the concordant bodies, we should keep these precepts before us at all times. Remember the oaths we take, not just for the dead letter, but to try to absorb them into our being until they become a part of us and radiate out to the world through our actions. Always continue to explore the symbolism through its many aspects, for that is how we learn and grow. In the East, which is far wiser than us in many ways, it is said that there are many paths to enlightenment. Freemasonry also holds to this view. May our ancient order help you find the path that seems right to you, and may you follow it to true enlightenment and find your bliss. Endnotes: 1. Papers from the Eranos Notebooks Vol. 1 Spirit and Nature Editor’s Forward, xi 2. Pike, Albert Lectures on Masonic Symbolism Scottish Rite Research Society Wahington 2006 |