January, 1949
Contents
What of the New Year MAN AND THE LIVING UNIVERSE
Spiritual Deliverance Through Freemasonry THE COMACINES
THE VOICE OF ALBERT PIKE ENDURING MONUMENTS
FREEMASONRY IN FOREIGN LANDS MASONIC FAITH AND ATHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY
A Flower LEE WILSON HARRIS, M.P.S.
THE PHILALETHES SOCIETY
NEWS
HIS CREED OF SUCCESS
TWELVE crisp new sheets bright with promise but blank save for the familiar names and numbering of the days, what do they hold in store for us?
Triumphs. . . defeats . . . joys, tears . . . starless nights . . . sunlit hours?
May the seers never become infallible ! In the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring forth lies the hope that makes today's actualities bearable. We are incurable optimists; if we ceased to be we should be lost. Yesterday's pains and tribulations began to lose their poignancy with the setting sun. Already we are feeling stronger. Tomorrow we shall go forward !
But what the New Year holds in store for each of us is not a matter of chance or circumstance. It depends largely upon what we individually are willing to put into it in the way of thought planning and intelligent effort.
Too many men are prone to place the blame for everything unfavorable upon everything except the right thing - themselves. They seem to think that business is a sort of god that scatters success or failure according to its moods.
Business is not a capricious god. It is a visible tangible very real thing. It is a man-made machine which handled by men who understand it produces its type of success. The things which sway it do so because they sway the men who operate it. It responds to "conditions" because men are influenced by conditions and conditions are largely the result of a state of mind.
If you are hoping for a better year don't sit back on the tail of your spine and give it absent treatment. "Faith without works is dead." If one would avoid the martyrdom of undeserved failure he must keep everlastingly busy.
Business is going to be very much what we believe it will be. Your business this year will be the best you've ever known - if you believe that and back it up with appropriate action. Few things are impossible to those who plan intelligently for success then work to make their plans win through.
Give your luck a chance to work with you but don't depend upon it to do all your work.
A famous football coach once said when someone called his attention to the lucky breaks the opposing team was getting "What of it? They earned them! The team that gets the breaks is the one that is playing the game every minute and not waiting for something extraordinary to happen in their favor." It is the same with the individual.
Most of the "good luck" this year will fall to those who do not wait for it but proceed diligently to go after it.
----o----
By Dr. Asbjorn P. Ousdal, M.P.S.; Santa Barbara, California
THE COMPLEXITY of man's social and intellectual relations rests upon his ability to recognize the pattern of life of which he is a part among the many living creatures in nature and subject to her laws.
Instinctively we become conscious of a pattern or plan as we notice that all living things share many characteristics, which may or may not be complete nor random. The dissimilarity among groups of living things or the near identity of them points to an essential orderly plan or purpose in nature, regulated by or comforming to harmony.
If we understand that we exist in a living universe, then purposefulness or pervading in nature becomes evident in the general structures of plants and animals so manifest in their structure and function. We are at once conscious of a difference between a mechanistic universe and a living self-renewing universe, thus it becomes reasonable to conclude that life is universal; that life has no beginning and no ending, and that it is the same in all living things, and that life may appear anywhere, at any time, in the universe under like conditions.
This is a problem man has attempted to solve through the ages and so beautifully exemplified in the many degrees of Freemasonry. The Greek philosophers, the many religious creeds, even the savages and primitive man attempted to grapple with the nature of the universe and man.
Freemasonry, because of its freedom of thought and brotherly toleration, gained an advantage over all other philosophies and expanded and grew as they found new truths. We are guilty of neglect if we do not contribute to the Masonic knowledge according to man's intellectual advancement. A superintelligent and erudite man declaring himself an atheist has failed to realize that he reached the final point of analysis and there built a barrier for himself and a jail for his intellect. Freemasonry at that moment comes to our rescue, that when the Master's word is lost, we start a diligent search for the lost truth. In other words, as a scientist, man keeps his God in the fourth dimension or further, so that he may still pray with confidence in his God and seek further light, that God as the law of harmony in nature is just a little beyond us and, like a ray of light, beckoning us to advance.
Learn to recognize your God and always keep Him ahead of your intellectual advancement; then fear not!
Now that we know evolution is a fact we can no longer accept the problem of adaptation as reflecting the purpose of a Creator. Modern biologists may differ as to the meaning of the mechanism of adaptation, but they all agree that it came about through the course of evolution; but when it comes to the question of how and why nature followed this course, we must continue to explain the purposefulness of this part of nature's history.
It should be mentioned here that there is no conflict between rational evolutionists and rational theologians as to God's method of creation. We must realize that natural selection is not the story of evolution because it does not solve the problem of purpose of which we are aware. Purpose should be defined as the opposite of randomness.
Before we start building the Temple not made with hands eternal in the heavens, it may prove expedient to consider the building material from the point of a living universe. The geneticists have shown us a splendid synthetic theory which the biologist can accept and which reduces the law of chance and the law of probability to nil.
We may recapitulate the above statements by considering the atomic bomb. The structure of the atom is separated by fission, causing the well-known explosion. There was nothing lost by such an explosion, there was simply a separation of elements or forces of which the atom was constructed.
In the universal laboratory, where the atom was synthetically formed by the union of many forces, we come to recognize a creative living principle held in union with all the other forces through the law of harmony giving everything in the universe a potential chance to organize into a living form. We may call this the creative principle of the Great Architect of the Universe.
The geneticists have proved both theoretically and experimentally that natural selection acts in a positive way, increasing the percentage of favorable genes in a population thus favoring hereditary combinations. Accordingly the "raw" material (Masonically, the quarry) are evidences of forces in the making which through chemistry, physics, etc., eventually produce building blocks which again through natural selection creates an organism. Natural selection then becomes the builder that creates the temple from the rubble in the quarry and the forces, that united through the law of harmony to form the atom, created the rubble.
The building of the temple shows that natural selection is not the only process involved in the evolution of the temple nor even adaptation, but the pseudopurposive factor is the creative directive operating to the law of harmony.
The synthetic underlying factors of the "rubble" are the preadaptive arrangements of the aforementioned forces. The pulsation in a living universe and the stream of life that circulates in it is directed and operated by these natural forces or laws and becomes the instruments of the Architect in Whom we live and have our being.
What we think of as "rubble" is what the scientist understands as "The Dust Cloud Hypothesis." There is no empty space in the universe. Between the stars are gigantic clouds of microscopic dust and gas which are as great as all the material in the stars themselves including all planet systems. In this cosmic dust life is also a property and synthetically it becomes active through the process of light. The interstellar dust is forced into larger clouds of the stars because each dust particle casts a shadow, which results in less light shining from one direction of one particle on another nearby, thus the particles attract each other by a force according to Newton's law of Gravitation, varying inversely as the square of the distance between them.
The Great Architect then is the Light, which brings about order and living forms which build the Temple not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
Applying our Masonic philosophies we may say it thus: Let there be light and there was light, which would mean: Recognize God, because God is there! As the mind clears and the mists fall away from our dormant brain we perceive to the east the roseate dawn of another day . . . and there was light!
----o----
Spiritual Deliverance Through Freemasonry
By Marius Lepage, F.P.S., Laval (Mayenne), France
Translated from the French by Leo Fischer. F.P.S. and Lee Edwin Wells. F.P.S.
(Introductory Note. - The following article cannot be read as you run. It is thought-provoking, profound and, perhaps, controversial to the American Freemason. You may disagree with it in part or in whole, yet this does not reflect the official attitude of the Editors, the Executive Committee, nor the Philalethes Society as a whole. Yet, to our mind, it is an expression of the deeply mystical attitude of French Freemasonry as opposed to the Anglo-American accent upon morality in its interpretation of the meaning of our Fraternity. The author is the editor of "Le Symbolisme," perhaps the most influential of the Continental mystical publications, and he delivered the article as a lecture before his Lodge at a recent Saint John Feast Day. The American Freemason and reader will note unusual uses of certain words and phrases. For example, "Church" refers always to the Roman Catholic Church and is not a collective term as we often use it in America. There is also an unusual placing of the Columns and Freemasons will understand wherein the difference lies. The reference to "Major Trumps" denotes to the ancient deck of the Tarot, used here in the highest mystical sense. The translators have endeavored to bring out the spirit of this original work and have been obliged, in a few instances, to depart from the literal to render the meaning of certain mystical terms more clear. Without comment, pro or con, it is our hope that this article will forward a deeper understanding of our French brethren and their approach to Freemasonry. - Lee Edwin Wells).
* * *
ACCORDING to that which we are taught by tradition, especially that which comes to us from the Orient, we actually live at the end of a cycle, a cycle that is also the end of a world. Enmeshed in the errors and misery of the Age of Darkness - the Kali-Yuga - humanity seeks in vain the narrow path of salvation. Men are so far distant from the original source of all light and of all life that they do not even dream of taking up the staff of the Hermit (Ninth Major Trump of the Tarot) whose fitful light extends no further than the uncertain steps of the seeker, tarrying in a world where the pure Spirit rapidly abdicates its last rights.
Even the Church, which should be, par excellence, the stronghold of the last believers and the nearly exhausted but still clear source of ultimate verities, yields to the demands of "progress" and takes for a renaissance that which is only agony.
"The distress which effects the entire earth, the perils which menaces its future, the mighty currents which cross it are less the sequences of a catastrophe than the precursory signs of approaching childbirth. Or, to be more precise, it is neither a disease nor a decadence of the world. It is a siege of growing pains." (Quoted from Cardinal Suhard's "Vigor or Decline of the Church," page 3, a pastoral letter, Lent, 1947).
General Character of the Epoch
Our period is essentially one of technical development, one of Number, one of Quantity. One might say, in a certain sense, that the quantitative notion of the "measurable" has replaced the philosophical notion of the measure. To the man of the 20th century, everything that is measurable is indisputable. Ours is a world of statistics, of exact relationships. But men forget that what is measurable, is nevertheless scarcely human. The measurable, the unit of measure, does not exist in itself. There is nothing but the relationship between two masses that we compare, and as these masses, whatever they may be, are necessarily in the domain of matter, of human origin, they are from the beginning vitiated by our own imperfections.
On the other hand, the useful, or what is considered as such, is substituted for the true, the beautiful, the good. Utility, efficiency, profit - in one word, the machine - have enslaved man. And from everywhere come cries of warning and distress. The theme of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" has often been repeated in the last few years: but how else could we better illustrate the terror of man before the monsters he has unchained and who growlingly threaten him?
Material and Spiritual
In the meantime the followers of the classic philosophies still hold to the old classifications of the last century. On a battleground that can no longer be measured by man, hoary warriors wield against each other the obsolete weapons of spirituality and materialism. They refuse to see that there is no contradiction proving anything in these time-worn terms. Spiritualism and materialism must not be considered as opposing each other but as completing each other. As we evolve on earth it is quite natural that spirit and matter should be intimately mixed. A spiritual man is, therefore, he who gives to the spirit, to the search for the spiritual, a priority over what we call matter but does not exclude it. On the other hand, the materialist is one who reverses the problem and gives to the exercise of purely censorial functions a predominance over the functions of a spiritual nature. However, to speak only of everyday human experience, we declare that the human spirit is not confined to the medium of the five senses in its formation and mechanism. I will not even speak of the classical example of Helen Keller who, though born deaf, dumb and blind, nevertheless succeeded in attaining to an intense spiritual life which only the two senses left her could not explain or procure for her.
Make the following experiment which, after all, is but one of the physiological forms of Hindu training. Withdraw within yourself, away from the noises without. Close your eyes and ears and, when your senses are nearly inactive, tell me if nevertheless you do not feel your inner life with greater intensity. The real human being is not merely a composite of flesh and bone. He is, above all, that absolutely in destructible thing called "spirit." In meditating upon this problem you easily succeed in disassociating the physical mass which you present to those about you from the energy within which moves that mass. As to the origin of that energy, that spirit, that sour if you will, this is not the place to discuss it. It would take us too far afield.
Some Modern Confusions
In addition to material and social confusions, the modern world is the domain of intellectual confusion. Through improper application, words lose their true meaning and the last traces of the Tower of Babel end by crumbling away (Sixteenth Major Trump of the Tarot), adding to the incomprehension of the problem of the body that of the legitimate requirements of the spirit. Deceived by traditional religious forms, there are many men who become enslaved by the phantasmagoria of the big words that sets them to dreaming. They invariably use these words in the wrong sense; and in their haste to generalize - that is, to reduce everything to the tranquil norms of the commonplace - they cast them into the molds of an easy synonymity.
It is thus that we see, one used for the other interchangeably, the terms Occultism, Mysticism, Esoteric, Initiation, although the first three terms are almost the opposite of the fourth.
Occult, from the Latin "occultus," meaning hidden, secret.
Mystic, from the Greek "mustikos" through the Latin "mysticus," that which is related to the Mysteries, that is to say secret things known only to the initiates, "mustes."
Esoteric, from the Greek "esoterikos," that which is the inner part.
It is evident that an analogy connects these three words, that all refer to the idea of hidden, of the inner part, secret. On the contrary, Initiation - Latin "initiare," to begin - has quite a different sense that gives it the chronological and logical priority. By Initiation one begins to penetrate the Mysteries and can truly be called a Mystic. By Initiation, finally, that which is of the inner part, within, esoteric becomes accessible to us.
Initiatory Forms
Such being the quality of initiation, the man in search of the Light is rapidly led to seek that indispensible condition of spiritual realization. The first step of the spirit will be to join other men occupied with the same problem. If the birth of the initiatory societies escapes the immediate realm of knowledge, if one is even constrained to attribute a transcendental origin to them, nevertheless the fact remains that they are human in their manifestations. One can say that such societies are the geometrical point at which the divine and human enter into contact and are mingled.
Numerous conditions must be present in order that these societies may truly accomplish their work so that their members may enjoy the spiritual benefit of the "communion," that they may attain full knowledge at the source of all truths and thus achieve final deliverance, the ultimate goal of our efforts.
Actually, in our western world, it would seem that there are only two societies at the present time that can be called initiatory - the Catholic Church and Freemasonry.
The Church and Freemasonry
It has become a common and rather banal practice not only to emphasize the apparent points of difference between the Church and Freemasonry, but also those internal deviations which seem to lead them both away from the true paths of initiation. However, do not be deceived on this point. If there still remains in the western world some bit of the flame under the ashes, it will be found in these two societies; and, consequently, within these organizations, no matter how deplorable, one might be able to revive it. And yet these two organizations are not identical in either form or substance. If the spokes of a wheel, though their line of movement is apparently different, meet at the same point they are nevertheless in equilibrium around that central point, and the equilibrium is attained only by the equality of the opposites.
The profound difference between the Church and Freemasonry, and one seldom stated in principle, is that the latter rejects original sin and, in consequence, the idea of the fall. I, personally, do not believe, and I find it logically impossible for me to believe, that man could have been created perfect and yet one day a breach appeared in that perfection through which sin entered. I do not believe in sin, nor in the fall. Consequently, I cannot accept the notion of a redeemer and, in this sense, I am not a Christian. It seems to me, rather, that we have been cast into cycles of existence, and that we shall remain therein for an indefinite time until we shall be reintegrated with the great Unity to which, in our inability to comprehend, we give the name of God.
The Problem of Human Liberty
One of the first consequences of this hypothesis is the limitation of the principle of human liberty. It is becoming extremely limited, at least on the physical and moral planes. In the realm of the material everything is "caused," nothing is left to freedom or chance. It is the same on the moral plane. What man calls suffering, misfortune, sin, appears like the unfolding of the chain of consequences. In this pain, misfortune and sin, I always find the God who watches within us. Human liberty extends much higher, on the metaphysical plane. It is exclusively a liberty of judgement, of evaluation of the events in which we move. If we accept these events, happy or unhappy, with the same tranquility of spirit, we are on the proper path. But if we complain, especially if suffering befalls us, we miss the path. We then suffer all the more solely because we do not submit to the Law to which all men must bow.
The realization of happiness depends directly upon this position. Happiness, for man, is a question of relativity. Each man has his personal notion of happiness. That which pleases my neighbor might give me little satisfaction and vice versa. Happiness is to be found in the inner accord between our aspirations and our attainments. It matters little whether or not this accord manifests upon the material, moral or spiritual planes. The essential thing is that it does exist. When we feel that we have fully attained what we wanted to do, we experience a sort of profound satisfaction which is the sign of true happiness.
The question of happiness is tied closely with that of sin. Sin, the fear of sin and its eschatological consequences, poisons the lives of the most respectable persons because they are the most scrupulous. I believe that we should be delivered from the idea of sin, taken in the ordinary meaning of the term. But it is advisable to apply this only to a chosen few because of the social consequences to those who have not evolved to that state "beyond good and evil."
Though truth is one in essence, it is manifold in its manifestations. There are as many small, individual truths as there are men upon the face of the earth. Each sees the truth before his door and I shall quote Nietzsche's phrase: "Wherever you be dig deep the source is at flour feet."
Human Gratuity
All human truth can be summarized in one word, selflessness. One must act according to the laws of Karma-Yoga, that is to say, to act without any thought of motive or of the consequences of the act, to act because it is the law of man to work and work well. It is necessary to begin a task and to follow it to completion. Again Nietzsche: "If you are travelling on an evil path, go to the end of it; you will always see where it is taking you." But we must act without expecting the smallest recompense for our acts . . . act selflessly. This naturally excludes the seeking of power which, moreover, is given into the bargain to him who continues to the end of the journey.
To love, but not to expect love in return. To free oneself of the fetters of selfish love and, from what may seem to be a cruel and unnatural act, to call forth a greater love . . . Bhakti-Yoga.
To obtain knowledge, but not to demand anything of that knowledge. To seek knowledge because it is the greatest law of man, that which makes us light bearers. A wholly disinterested knowledge, a selfless knowledge . . . Jnana-Yoga.
These three paths of selfishness lead to the three terms we have previously studied: occultism, mystic, esoteric. There remains one further step that must be taken. When all this has been acquired, when you act, love and understand selflessly, you must wipe it all out, you must learn that all is in vain. These are the profound mysteries of Mastership in a well-managed Lodge. They lead from the death of the profane vanities of this world to the contemplation of Unity, symbolized by the ever-green Acacia. All that remains is to practice the Royal Art - Raja-Yoga - a selfless act par excellence, because by it we are gathered to the bosom of Him who gives everything without asking aught in return.
The Goal of Freemasonry
In the table appended to this essay I endeavored to represent, in the form of the traditional Ternary, some of the correspondences that unite different branches of the hidden sciences of Initiation. From the East to the West and for all the forms of human thought, Initiation pursues an identical purpose, which we attain by an ascension of three degrees. The difference between the religions and Freemasonry is that the religions impose their initiations upon souls who cannot, or will not, seek by themselves; while Freemasonry proposes its initiations to those who with their own hands have sought to lift the veil of the goddess.
The goal of Initiation is to lead us to deliverance, that is to say, to re-integration in the primal Unity. It is not for nothing that this accession, so far as it concerns Freemasons, is called "The Royal Art." It corresponds very exactly to the "Kingdom of Heaven" of the Catholics, to the Raja-Yoga of the Vedantists.
We must undergo a triple liberation:
The liberation of the body, which we find on the column "J." which is the purgatorial path of the Catholic mystics, the Karma-Yoga of the Oriental metaphysicians.
The liberation of the heart which is the work of the Fellowcraft on the column "B." the path of illumination and Bhakti-Yoga.
Finally, the liberation of the spirit on the in
Correspondence in the Ternary
| Royal Art | Kingdom of God | Raja-Yoga | |
| Lodge: | Column "J" | Column "B" | Wor. Master |
| Apprentice | Fellowcraft | Master Mason | |
| Strength | Beauty | Wisdom | |
| Rough Ashlar | Blazing Star | Acacia | |
| Church: | Purgatorial Path | Illuminating Path | Unitive Path |
| Suffering | Militant | Triumphant | |
| Father | Son | Spirit | |
| Judaism | Catholicism | Johannism | |
| Philosophy: | Act | Love | Knowledge |
| Thesis | Antithesis | Synthesis | |
| Centrifugal | Centripetal | Equilibrium | |
| Vedantaism: | Karma-Yoga | Bhakti-Yoga | Jnana-Yoga |
| Alchemy: | Sulphur | Mercury | Salt |
| Astrology: | Moon | Sun | Ascendant |
| Numbers: | 3 | 5 | 7 |
Where Do We Go?
However, Freemasonry and the religions are only the equivalent of the Lesser Mysteries of Antiquity. The Greater Mysteries, which might be called the Great Mystics, are placed beyond these, because they enter deep into the spiritual world. I believe them to be incommunicable. They are essentially individual, without forms and without rites.
In the course of a generation very few men, certainly, attain to the conscious practice of the Greater Mysteries. That which, upon the first approach, appears frightening to our spirit born in time and space is the incalculable number of centuries that come, elapse and disappear before all men attain deliverance. However, this object disappears if we meditate but a few moments on the notion of the Infinite and the Eternal. What meaning have thousands of centuries to that which always existed and which will never end ? That is why, wherever destiny has placed us, we must always ask our Brethren to work not only for the moment which is already departing from us, but for Eternity which always remains in its inconceivable present.
----o----
Centuries before Christ and the founding of Rome, a race spread along the Mediterranean shores and afterwards became known in Syria and Asia Minor as 'Hittites,' (mentioned in the Bible), in Greece known as 'Pelasgoi,' and in Italy as Etruscans. The Hittites were engaged in building the Temple at Jerusalem, and the fame of that building spread far and wide.
The Romans learned their art of building, decorations, pottery, etc., from the Etruscans, who were the same race as the Hittites and carried with them some of the Hittite traditions. In Rome there were developed Collegia of Artificers and in early Christian days these had traditions of King Solomon. At the downfall of Rome and its sacking by barbarians, the guild of artificers left and settled in the district of Como where they fortified and held the island of Comacina, in Lake Como, for hundreds of years. Known as Magistri Comacini, or Comacine Masters, they spread their influence as master builders all over Western Europe and finally reached the shores of Britain, where later they merged into the great Masonic guilds of the Middle ages. As these guilds died out their forms and ceremonies were preserved to a great extent in our Masonic Lodges in England. from when they were brought to America.
Such in brief is the theory of the Comacines, as a link in the chain which has brought Masonry down the ages. Anyone desiring more information on the subject is referred to haste Comacines" by W. Ravenscroft
----o----
Real Proficiency
It is all very well to be proficient in the ritual. That is not only necessary, but is very desirable from the standpoint of impressing the newly-made brother with the solemnity of the occasion of his presence in a Lodge. It is, however, well also to consider efficiency, for this involves the practice of the ritual not merely in the Lodge but before the world. - Masonic News.
----o----
Reason is at fault when it deals with the Infinite. There we must revere and believe. Notwithstanding the calamities of the virtuous, the miseries of the deserving, the prosperity of tyrants and the murder of martyrs, we must believe that there is a wise, just, merciful, and loving God, an Intelligence and a Providence, supreme over all, and caring for the minutest things and events.
* * *
Do not expect easily to convince men of the truth, or to lead them to think aright.
* * *
Be faithful to Masonry, which is to be faithful to the best interests of mankind. Labor, by precept and example, to elevate the standard of Masonic character, to enlarge its sphere of influence, to popularize its teachings, and to make all men know it for the Great Apostle of Peace, Harmony, and Good-will on earth among men; of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
* * *
Weigh well what it is you promise; but once the promise and pledge are given, remember that he who is false to his obligation will be false to his family, his friends, his country, and his God.
* * *
He who desires to understand the harmonious and beautiful proportions of Freemasonry must read, reflect, study, digest, and discriminate. Freemasonry is a succession of allegories, the vehicles of great lessons in morality and philosophy which you will find to constitute a great, complete, and harmonious system.
* * *
There is no legal limit to the possible influences of a good deed or a wise word or a generous effort.
* * *
The best gift we can bestow on man is manhood.
* * *
Masonry does not change human nature, and cannot make honest men out of born knaves.
-----o----
By James K. Remick, M.P.S., San Diego, California
THE FIRST lesson to be learned by the earnest seeker of Masonic Light, if he is to gather unto his soul the beauty and sweetness of its philosophy, is that its fundamentals and its antiquity are hidden, though revealed to the searcher, in symbols and parables or in allegory. So also is it with the unwritten history of humankind and its multitude of legends, in adoration of the Deity.
Wherever we may search, we find a great Master in his day and time. The Babylonians adored "Ishkar the Glorious"; Egypt reverenced "Osiris"; the ancient Hebrew the "Ineffable Name"; Arabia its "Mohammed"; Persia revered "Ormuzd" its principle God of Light, and the Christians their "Jesu Rabonni."
In the Eastern philosophies one of the most ancient of doctrines and studies of the Cosmos has been astrology, and the consequent symbolism depicting the unfoldment of the culture of the period is based upon such concepts. We are informed that in the Mediterranean territory, monuments symbolizing the Zoroastrian god of Light, Mithras, slaying the Bull, have been preserved for centuries. In the Persian system of two gods, one good and the other wicked, Mithras was the god of goodness. The symbol in his worship best known is the figure of a hero, in Phrygian cap and trowsers, mounted on a sinking bull, and stabbing it in sacrifice to the unseen god, while a dog licks up the blood from the wound.
The chart of the zodiac has been known for millenia, and even to this day is considered as infallible. The two thousand years prior to the advent of Zoroaster, with humanity in the zodiacal sign of Taurus the Bull, was an age of the materialism and brutalities of Ba-al, the bull revered as the symbol of fertility and brute strength. With the procession of the equinoxes came the sign of Aries the lamb, the anti-theses of the shadows and the mists of a by-gone age. What could be more natural than that the God of Light and enlightenment would slay the concepts of an erroneous era.
In journeying down to our Christian period it is of clear note that the three Magi of the East, the followers of Zoroaster and of Mithras, were to lend adoration at the advent of another Great Bearer of the standard of Light, and the truth enunciated by Zoroaster of Aries and our Jesus of Pices are fundamentally one and the same and continue to endure.
Mithras, divinity of Light of the Persians, and invoked with Ormuzd as the god of bounty and increase, has been transmitted into the philosophy of the Greeks and the Romans, the Greeks identifying Mithras as Helios, and indelibly registered the worship in the minds of men by executing the Mithraic bas-relief found in Southern European regions. There are also Roman relics, monument, sculptures, temple ruins and inscriptions, preserved to this day as evidence of a profound faith in a Divinity now enshrouded in the mists of the past.
Inventory and description of the numerous relics depicting Mithras, his association with other gods enshrined in history, and the symbolism of the bull can be had by searching the records set forth in any reputable library and volumes of reference.
----o----
Lodge Canongate Kilwinning was instituted in the reign of King Charles II, by charter from the Mother Lodge of Kilwinning, which may be fairly termed the "Premier Scottish Warrant of Constitution" and runs as follows:
"At the ludge of Kilwinning, the twentie day of december 1677 yeares, deacons and wardanes and the rest of the brethren considering the love and favour showne to us be the rest of the brethren of the cannigate of edinburghe & inroled the qeh days gives power & liberty to them to enter, receave & pase ony qualified persons that they think fitt in name and behalf of the ludge of Kilwinning & to pay ther entry and booking moneys due to the sd ludge as we do ourselves, they sending of ther number to us yearly and we to do the tyke to them if need be. The tllk day ther names ar insert into this book.
----o----
The charter of Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, A.F. & A.M., Alexandria, Virginia, does not name George Washington as Master but recites: "We, Edmund Randolph, Governor of the Commonwealth aforesaid and Grand Master of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of Free Masons within the same, by and with the consent of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, do hereby constitute and appoint our illustrious and well-beloved Brother, George Washington, Esquire, late General and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of the United States of America and our Worthy Brethren, Robert McCrea, William Hunter, Junior, and John Allison, Esquires, together with all such other Brethren as may be admitted to associate with them, to be a just, true and regular Lodge of Free Masons, by the name, title and designation of the Alexandria Lodge No. 22."
----o----
By Leo Fischer, F.P.S., Lemon Grove, California
China. - The District Grand Lodge for China (Philippine Constitution) held its 12th Annual Communication at the Masonic Hall, at 1623 Peking Road West, in the City of Shanghai, on March 31, 1948, with an attendance of 105, of whom 72 were members of Lodges in the District. Rt. Wor. Brother David W. K. Au presided, and official representatives of the other District Grand Lodges (England, Ireland, Scotland, and Massachusetts) of China were present. District Grand Secretary Luther M. Jee reported a membership in the district on November 30, 1947, of 559 as compared with 502 at the close of the year previous. In his address, the District Grand Master referred to "the vision before many serious thinking Freemasons, that of the founding of the Grand Lodge of China, when time and opportunity permit. The vision of a Grand Lodge of China that would be opened and supported by all free and accepted Freemasons, one that would strictly adhere to the ancient landmarks of our noble order; a Grand Lodge that knows no difference in creed, religion or race; a Grand Lodge that would serve the best interest of the Craft."
Philippine Islands. - Most Wor. Brother Albert J. Brazee, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands, founded in 1912, has done excellent work in connection with the reorganization of the few Blue Lodges which still needed encouragement and the finishing touches required after the tremendous shake-up they had received during the war. Most Wor. Brother Antonio Gonzales, F.P.S., has again taken charge of the official organ of the Grand Lodge, "The Cabletow." Scottish Rite Freemasonry, under the expert guidance of Most Wor. Brother Frederic H. Stevens, the Deputy of the Supreme Council, has been growing and prospering exceedingly. A new set of Scottish Rite Bodies, the Luzon Bodies, is doing good work in the city of Manila, in addition to the Manila Bodies and the Philippine Bodies. As regards the standard of membership maintained by the Luzon Bodies, we are told that the last class of candidates, recently received, consisted of five civil engineers, three lawyers, three division superintendents of schools, two physicians, ten United States Army officers, and the rest businessmen of standing in the community.
Finland. - The Grand Lodge of Finland held its annual communications on May 4, 1948. As in many other places in Europe, the question of a meeting place for the future was paramount. Grand Lodge met again in a rented hall, the assembly room of a school in Helsingfors in which several of the Lodges have been holding their meeting since the war. No permanent solution for the question was found. The Grand Lodge granted a charter to a new Lodge, Satakunta No. 6. at Pori-Bjoerneborg.
England. - Nearly 300 brethren, members of Kenton Lodge No. 6046, met recently in the Grand Temple of the Cafe Royal, Regent Street, London, W. 1, to witness a demonstration of an initiation ceremony as it may have been held in 1730. The work was undertaken in aid of a fund for the erection of a Masonic Temple at Harrow. The feature of the work was its essentially Christian character, the Lodge being opened in the name of Jesus Christ and many of the invocations being Christian in tone. This remained in practice until the formation of the United Grand Lodge in 1813, when the universal nature of Freemasonry being more widely accepted there came the edict that men of all races and sects might join the Brotherhood. The disposition of the Lodge placed the Master, addressed throughout as "Worshipful" and not "Worshipful Master," in the East at the short leg of the Mystical Table shaped as an inverted "L." The two Wardens were seated in the West, each in front of a pillar surmounted by the letters B and J, respectively. Suspended over the Taster's place was the letter G. Deacons were not always in attendance, but in this demonstration two took part, the Senior Deacon being to the right and rear of the Master, and the Junior Deacon behind the Wardens. The Secretary and Tyler completed the officers. Only the Master and the Senior Deacon used gavels. Throughout the ceremony the Wardens conducted the candidate. The demonstration was phrased in the quaint language of the 18th century and the atmosphere of the period came to life for all present. The sincerity of the work was evident, nor was humor absent, as when the Candidate, on his withdrawal after obligation, was informed that upon his return he might come prepared with 7s. 6d., "the price of 15 pairs of gloves," which it would be his privilege to present to the officers and brethren, leaving one pair for himself. The ceremony was an experience from which those present gained both knowledge and a deeper appreciation of the fundamentals of Freemasonry. It brought to life a picture of the past, when labor and refreshment were intermixed, when grammar was what we would now describe as quaint, when tallow candles illumined the scene, and screws of tobacco and churchwarden pipes were provided by the Lodge. It brought home the enthusiasms with which brethren give their time and talents for the good of their fellows and for the Craft as a whole.
Holland. - "La Heroldo," the official organ of the Universal League of Freemasons, has made its appearance again, at Adrian Pauwstraat 51, The Hague, Holland. The Congress of the League was held at The Hague on September 18 and 19, 1948. Dr. I. S. Van Solkema, the President, and the Dutch committee of the League, made great efforts towards the success of this gathering of their organization.
Chile. - Sergio Gonzalez, Executive Grand Secretary of the Inter-American Masonic Conference, P.O. Box 2867, Santiago, Chile, is sending out an English version of the resolutions adopted by the First Inter-American Conference of Symbolic Freemasonry held at Montevideo, Uruguay, from April 14 to 20, 1947. The Conference is to be congratulated upon its intelligent and painstaking work. The Second Conference will be held in Mexico in 1950. It is to be regretted that the response to the one in 1947 was not satisfactory. The English-speaking Grand Lodges abstained from attending it and commenting upon it for reasons which we still have to learn.
----o----
MASONIC FAITH AND ATHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY
By Rabbi Hirsh Geffen, F.P.S., Savannah, Georgia
SOCIETY and education show man his path in life. But when man begins to realize how little he is, and sees that all his efforts to find a solution to the many problems of life are in vain, he starts to seek shelter under the wings of his traditional faith, the faith of his father and fore-fathers. It sometimes happens that he refuses to admit his defects, and he abandons the right way of life and creed, and becomes a convert to atheistic ideologies. He forgets that the world is filled with glory, but also with obstacles and disappointments; that its paths are often misty and clouded; that people are groping in darkness; that everybody wants to build his house at the expense of the other. Who is so wise as to know how to pass secure through all the labyrinths of space and time?
Only the flash of the Divine Spiritual Light is able to enlighten the dark avenues of incomprehensibilities. Only Almighty’s Power can scatter the dark clouds of man’s thoughts and grant him Heavenly Light.
The preference and advantage of Masonic purified religion consist of a combat against the dark ideologies of disbelief and heterodoxy.
When we witness the behavior of one man in peace and order, in the paths of justice and righteousness, and of another perplexed and confused, living a life of doubt and resignation, of worry and grief, can we doubt who is better off?
Freemasons say that one who abandons religion does so in order to live a life of apostasy and dissolution. The Atheist is worse than the illiterate. The ignorant at least feels remorse when he is conscious of having committed a crime; he is sorry for what he has done and strives to make amends; but the atheistic philosopher depending upon his own ideologies, commits transgressions calmly and does not experience shame or remorse, because he is convinced that he has not committed any trespass. He finds his action justified by his principles and endeavors to convince the world that his deeds, far from being crimes, are noble acts. Have we not had evidence of this in the atheistic totalitarian countries?
Atheism is an evil that endangers social life all the world over, and Freemasonry has for that reason undertaken to combat it.
Freemasonry is very proud of its principles and ideas of tolerance. Every Brother is entitled to worship God according to his beliefs and comprehensions. But atheists and irreligious libertines are not entitled to admission to its folds because men denying the existence of the Creator are sure to become criminals and enemies of humanity. So long as part of the world continues to be dominated by the principles of atheistic ideologies, so long can we not be sure that there will be no war. Disbelief in a Supreme Being creates a vacuum in God’s Universe. It replaces light by darkness, and beauty and harmony by ugliness and disorder.
Freemasonry, a symbol of faith, will forever uphold religion and the fear of God as one of its cardinal virtues.
----o----
The principal articles of food of the common people during the time of Solomon were wheat and barley meal, fish, lentils, olives and their oil, honey, figs, grapes, mulberries, melons and peaches. Meat was an article of luxury, the flesh of goats being perhaps the most commonly used.
----o----
A flower is the sweetest poem
Written on the page of earth:
The hand of heaven traces it,
With irised flame its lines are writ
As God gives its sweet beauty birth.
- Milford E. Shields, M.P.S.
----o----
Life is a school. The world is neither prison nor penitentiary, nor a place of ease, nor an amphitheatre for games and spectacle, but a place of instruction and discipline. Life is given for moral and spiritual training, and the entire course of the great school of life is an education for virtue, happiness and a future existence. - Albert Pike.
----o---
Freemasonry had a silent but mighty part in the making of America and in fashioning its fundamental life and law. The story of the American Revolution might have been very different, had not Washington and most of his generals been held together by the peculiar tie which Freemasons spin and weave between them.
----o----
Initiation into Freemasonry not only clears the mind of him who understands it, but causes the hoodwink of profane ignorance to fall in showing to the candidate the source of the "True Light." We learn to think in order to have the power to live well in fulfilling faithfully the task that Life imposes on us.
----o----
Love is the best atmosphere in which the soul can grow.
----o---
Small kindnesses and courtesies habitually practiced in our human relationships, give a greater charm to the character than the display of great talent and accomplishments. - M.A. Kelty.
----o----
Brother Lee Wilson Harris, M.P.S., of Alexandria, Louisiana, Grand Secretary of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Louisiana, has a Masonic record to be proud of.
Born at Lauderdale, Mississippi, on April 2, 1894, he spent his boyhood as son of a railroad man in various cities of Alabama and Mississippi. A few years after his graduation from the schools of Meridian, Mississippi, in 1914, World War I caught him in the draft, and he went overseas. After some service with the U.S. Army engineers in Germany, he drifted back to the South and was engaged there in the music and furniture business until 1931 when he took over the duties of Masonic secretary.
He married Miss Lucille Ross, a school mate of his from Meridian, and they have two sons and one daughter, and three grandchildren.
Brother Harris' Masonic work and occupations have kept him extremely busy in the Symbolic Lodge, Chapter, Commandery, and Consistory, as well as in the Mystic Shrine and Eastern Star and in church and various branches of charity. His work as organist and editor of the "Masonic Bulletin of Louisiana," issued by the Grand Chapter, R.A.M., and Grand Council, R. & S. M., of Louisiana, has attracted favorable notice.
It gives us great pleasure to publish Brother Harris' portrait on the cover page of this issue of "The Philalethes."
L.F.
----o----
The secret of Freemasonry has never been divulged for the simple reason that it is not communicable. It does not consist of a doctrine that is condensable into a treatise of philosophy. The initiate must discover in himself the knowledge which initiation unveils. Thus in the depth of ourselves in pursuing the real I, we perceive the mystery of the inaffable Unity. This perception leaves us mute. We feel but remain silent. Our experience escapes the formulas of spoken words. The true secret of Freemasonry resides then in an esotericism which is inexpressable and to which allegories and symbols can but make allusion.
----o----
New Members
Archer R. Curtis; Wichita, Kansas.
Laurence Healey; Vancouver (British Columbia); Canada.
Dr. Charles B. Huestis; Hayden, Arizona.
George Robertson; Detroit, Michigan.
Frank Skelton; Montreal (Quebec); Canada.
Wylie B. Wendt; Louisville, Kentucky.
Change of Addresses
Albert C. Hanson, M.P.S.; 9 Overlook Drive; Ft. Thomas, Kentucky.
Albert Knight, M.P.S.; 1518 Metacom Avenue; Warren, Rhode Island.
Jerry R. Marker, M.P.S.; 937 East Park Street; Oklahoma City 4, Oklahoma.
Lyman H. Reddaway, M.P.S.; General Delivery; Mt. Vernon, Oregon.
Leslie J. D. Samuelsson, M.P.S.; 1602 Valley Park Drive; Oxnard, California.
Lee Edwin Wells, F.P.S.; P.O. Box 111; Canoga Park, California.
Recent visitors at the home of President Walter A. Quincke included: Dr. Joseph A. Rosenburg, M.P.S., of Los Angeles; George R. Harvey, F.P.S., of Berkeley, California; V. M. Burrows, M.P.S., of Long Beach, California, and Chan L. Rogers, M.P.S., of Los Angeles.
The Philalethes - January, 1949; Volume 4, Number 1. Board of Editors Walter A. Quincke F.P.S.; Leo Fischer, F.P.S.; and Lee Edwin Wells, F.P.S. - The official publication of the Philalethes Society; 274 South Burlington Avenue; Los Angeles 4, California, where all communications should he directed. - Publication schedule: Eight (8) issues per year or volume: January; February; March; May (April-May); July (June-July); September (August-September); November (October-November), and December. No advertising in any form is solicited or accepted. When requesting a change of address, please give the old as well as the veto addresses, together with your postal zone number, if you have such. Annual subscription, in the United States, $3.00; elsewhere, $4.00, payable in advance. - The "Philalethes" INDEX, covering volumes 1, 2, and 3, will be sent gratuitously to any Freemason requesting the same. The columns of ''The Philalethes'' are reserved for the literary contributions of the members of the Society, and the material is selected for its quality and timeliness rather than upon name. All published articles, however, express the ideas and opinions of their contributors only, and in no way need they be the opinion of the Society. - Member-Editors of Craft magazines, here and abroad, are privileged to reprint, in part or in full, any articles first published in "The Philalethes," but are expected to give due credit to its source. - The Philalethes Society was founded October 1, 1928, and is an International Body of Freemasons who have Light to impart and Freemasons who seek more Light. - The Society's current year book, "The Informant," tells the story since its inception and enlightens one on our aims. A copy will be mailed free of charge to any Freemason requesting the same.
----o----
You can do more than strike while the iron is hot - you can make the iron hot by striking. Thus the philosopher, Colton, epitomized a great lesson in personal progress. It was in much the same spirit that Napoleon is said to hove exclaimed upon an occasion to one of his generals, "Circumstances? I make circumstances!"
One of the great values of thrift is that it enables us to take advantage of opportunities for self-advancement when they are available. But a still deeper value comes through the creation of opportunity. Fortified by thrift one often may force the issue with fate rather than wait patiently for opportunity to come knocking at the door.
The great difference between the thrifty and the thriftless man is that the former is always sure of his destiny; his star is continually in the ascendency while the other irrevocably is marked for failure.
Jean de La Fontaine's great fable of the grasshopper and the ant contains a depth of meaning for all of us. When skies are clear and the sun is shining we may get along very well without provision for the future but when adversity and hard times come, the foresight and providence of the ant prove their worth.
Thrift is essential to progress whether our pathway leads to adversity or opportunity. If disaster awaits us we shall need the material resources and the strength of character which are ours through thrift. If we are more fortunate we shall be able to take advantage of favorable opportunities when they come or create them for our own uses.
Through thrift we overcome adversity, create opportunity, conquer destiny.