The first time I have ever heard of anything that is connected to Freemasonry was when I was watching Bones during one of the early seasons, where Bones and gang had to solve a case of the cannibal and it turned out Zach was helping the madman all along. I was mildly interested because of the story of the Widow's Son. Years later I came across Manly P. Hall's 'Secret Teachings of All Ages' book and found a story regarding the Hiramic Legend in one of the chapters.
When Solomon – the
beloved of God , builder of the Everlasting House, and Grand Master of the
Lodge of Jerusalem – ascended the throne of his father David he consecrated his
life to the erection of a temple to God and a palace for the kings of Israel.
David’s faithful friend, Hiram, King of Tyre, hearing that a son of David sat
upon the throne of Israel, sent messages of congratulation and offers of
assistance to the new ruler. In his History of the Jews, Josephus mentions that
copies of the letters passing between the two kings were then to be seen both
at Jerusalem and at Tyre.
Despite Hiram’s lack
of appreciation for the twenty cities of Galilee which Solomon presented to him
upon the completion of the temple, the two monarchs remained the best of
friends. Both were famous for their wit and wisdom, and when they exchanged
letters each devised puzzling questions to test the mental ingenuity of the
other. Solomon madean agreement with Hiram of Tyre promising vast amounts of
barley, wheat, corn, wine, and oil as wages for the masons and carpenters from
Tyre who were to assist the Jews in the erection of the temple. Hiram also
supplied cedars and other fine trees, which were made into rafts and floated
down the sea to Joppa, whence they were taken inland by Solomon’s
workmen to the
temple site.
Because of his great
love for Solomon, Hiram of Tyre sent also the Grand Master of the Dionysiac
Architects, Hiram Abiff, a Widow’s Son, who had no equal among the craftsmen of
the earth. Hiram is described as being “a Tyrian by birch, but of Israelitish
descent,” and “a second Bezaleel, honored by his king with the title of
Father.”
The Freemason’s
Pocket Companion (published in 1771) describes Hiram as “the most cunning,
skilful and curious workman that ever lived, whose abilities were not confined
to building alone, but extended to all kinds of work, whether in gold, silver,
brass or iron; whether in linen, tapestry, or embroidery; whether considered as
an architect, statuary [sic]; founder or designer, separately or together, he
equally excelled. From his designs, and under his direction, all the rich and
splendid furniture of the Temple and its several appendages were begun, carried
on, and finished. Solomon appointed him, in his absence, to fill the chair, as
Deputy Grand-Master; and in his presence, Senior Grand-Warden, Master of work,
and general overseer of all artists, as well those whom David had formerly
procured from Tyre and Sidon, as those Hiram should now send.” (Modem Masonic
writers differ as to the accuracy of the last sentence.)
Although an immense
amount of labor was involved in its construction, Solomon’s Temple – in the
words of George Oliver – “was only a small building and very inferior in point
of size to some of our churches.” The number of buildings contiguous to it and the
vast treasure of gold and precious stones used in its construction concentrated
a great amount of wealth within the temple area. In the midst of the temple
stood the Holy of Holies, sometimes called the Oracle. It was an exact cube,
each dimension being twenty cubits, and exemplified the influence of Egyptian
symbolism. The buildings of the temple
group were
ornamented with 1,453 columns of Parian marble, magnificently sculptured, and
2,906 pilasters decorated with capitals. There was a broad porch facing the
east, and the sanctum sanctorum was upon the west.
According to
tradition, the various buildings and courtyards could hold in all 300,000
persons. Both the Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies were entirely lined with
solid gold plates encrusted with jewels. King Solomon began the building of the
temple in the fourth year of his reign on what would be, according to modern
calculation, the 21st day of April, and finished it in the eleventh year of his
reign on the 23rd day of October. The temple was begun in the 480th year after
the children of Israel had passed the Red Sea. Part of the labor of
construction included the building of an artificial foundation on the brow of
Mount Moriah. The stones for the temple were hoisted from quarries directly
beneath Mount Moriah and were trued before being brought to the surface. The
brass and golden ornaments for the temple were cast in molds in the clay ground
between Succoth and Zeredatha, and the wooden parts were all finished before
they reached the temple site. The building was put together, consequently,
without sound and without instruments, all its parts fitting exactly “without
the hammer of contention, the axe of division, or any tool of mischief.”
Anderson’s
much-discussed Constitutions of the Free-Masons, published in London in 1723,
and reprinted by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in 1734, thus describes the
division of the laborers engaged in the building of the Everlasting House:
“But Dagon’s Temple,
and the finest structures of Tyre and Sidon, could not be compared with the
Eternal God’s Temple at Jerusalem, (...) there were employed about it no less
than 3,600 Princes, or Master-Masons, to conduct the work according to Solomon’s
directions, with 80,000 hewers of stone in the mountain, or Fellow Craftsmen,
and 70,000 labourers, in all 153,600 besides the levy under Adoniram to work in
the mountains of Lebanon by turns with the Sidonians, viz., 30,000, being in
all 183,600.”
Daniel Sickels gives
3,300 overseers, instead of 3,600, and lists the three Grand Masters
separately. The same author estimates the cost of the temple at nearly four
thousand millions of dollars.
The Masonic legend
of the building of Solomon’s Temple does not in every particular parallel the
Scriptural version, especially in those portions relating to Hiram Abiff.
According to the Biblical account, this Master workman returned to his own
country; in the Masonic allegory he is foully murdered. On this point A. E.
Waite, in his New Encyclopædia of Freemasonry, makes the following explanatory
comment:
“The legend of the
Master-Builder is the great allegory of Masonry. It happens that his figurative
story is grounded on the fact of a personality mentioned in Holy Scripture, but
this historical background is of the accidents and not the essence; the significance
is in the allegory and not in any point of history which may lie behind it.”
Hiram, as Master of
the Builders, divided his workmen into three groups, which were termed Entered
Apprentices, Fellow-Craftsmen, and Master Masons. To each division he gave
certain passwords and signs by which their respective excellence could be
quickly determined. While all were classified according to their merits some
were dissatisfied, for they desired a more exalted position than they were
capable of filling. At last three Fellow-Craftsmen, more daring than their
companions, determined to force Hiram to reveal to them the password of the
Master’s degree. Knowing that Hiram always went
into the unfinished
sanctum sanctorum at high noon to pray, these ruffians – whose names were
Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum – lay in wait for him, one at each of the main
gates of the temple. Hiram, about to leave the temple by the south gate, was
suddenly confronted by Jubela armed with a twenty-four-inch gauge.
Upon Hiram’s refusal
to reveal the Master’s Word, the ruffian struck him on the throat with the
rule, and the wounded Master then hastened to the west gate, where Jubelo,
armed with a square, awaited him and made a similar demand. Again Hiram was
silent, and the second assassin struck him on the breast with the square. Hiram
thereupon staggered to the east gate, only to be met there by Jubelum armed
with a maul. When Hiram, refused him the Master’s Word, Jubelum struck the
Master between the eyes with the mallet and Hiram fell dead.
The body of Hiram
was buried by the murderers over the brow of Mount Moriah and a sprig of acacia
placed upon the grave. The murderers then sought to escape punishment for their
crime by embarking for Ethiopia, but the port was closed. All three were finally
captured, and after admitting their guilt were duly executed. Parties of three
were then sent out by King Solomon, and one of these groups discovered the
newly made grave marked by the evergreen sprig. After the Entered Apprentices
and the Fellow-Craftsmen had failed to resurrect their Master from the dead he
was finally raised by the Master Mason
with the “strong
grip of a Lion’s Paw.”
To the initiated
Builder the name Hiram Abiff signifies “My Father, the Universal Spirit, one in
essence, three in aspect.” Thus the murdered Master is a type of the Cosmic
Martyr – the crucified Spirit of Good, the dying god – whose Mystery is
celebrated throughout the world. Among the manuscripts of Dr. Sigismund
Bastrom, the initiated Rosicrucian, appears the following extract from von
Welling concerning the true philosophic nature of the Masonic Hiram:
“The original word םריח , Hiram, is a
radical word consisting of three consonants ר ח and ם i. e. Cheth, Resh and Mem. (1) ח, Cheth, signifies Chamah, the Sun’s light, i. e. the Universal,
invisible, cold fire of Nature attracted by the Sun, manifested into light and
sent down to us and to every planetary body belonging to the solar system. (2) ר, Resh, signifies חיר Ruach, i. e.
Spirit, air, wind, as being the Vehicle which conveys and collects the light
into numberless Foci, wherein the solar rays of light are agitated by a
circular motion and manifested in Heat and burning Fire. (3) ם, or מ Mem, signifies majim, water, humidity,
but rather the mother of water, i. e. Radical Humidity or a particular kind of
condensed air. These three constitute the Universal Agent or fire of Nature in
one word, םריח , CHiram, not Hiram.”
Albert Pike mentions
several forms of the name CHiram: Khirm, Khurm, and Khur- Om, the latter ending
in the sacred Hindu monosyllable OM, which may also be extracted from the names
of the three murderers. Pike further relates the three ruffians to a triad of
stars in the constellation of Libra and also calls attention to the fact that
the Chaldean god Bal – metamorphosed into a demon by the Jews – appears in the
name of each of the murderers, Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum. To interpret the
Hiramic legend requires familiarity with both the Pythagorean and Qabbalistic
systems of numbers and letters, and also the philosophic and astronomic cycles
of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Brahmins.
For example,
consider the number 33. The first temple of Solomon stood for thirty-three
years in its pristine splendor. At the end of that time it was pillaged by the
Egyptian King Shishak, and finally (588 B.C.) it was completely destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar and the people of Jerusalem were led into captivity to Babylon.
(See General History of Freemasonry, by Robert Macoy.) Also King David ruled
for thirty-three years in Jerusalem; the Masonic Order is divided into
thirty-three symbolic degrees; there are thirty-three segments in the human
spinal column; and Jesus was crucified in the thirty-third year of His life.
The efforts made to
discover the origin of the Hiramic legend show that, while the legend in its
present form is comparatively modem, its underlying principles run back to
remotest antiquity. It is generally admitted by modem Masonic scholars that the
story of the martyred Hiram is based upon the Egyptian rites of Osiris, whose
death and resurrection figuratively portrayed the spiritual death of man and
his regeneration through initiation into the Mysteries. Hiram is also
identified with Hermes through the inscription on the Emerald Table. From these
associations it is evident that Hiram is to be considered as a prototype of
humanity; in fact he is Plato’s Idea (archetype) of man. As Adam after the Fall
symbolizes the Idea of human degeneration, so Hiram through his resurrection
symbolizes the Idea of human regeneration.
On the 19th day of
March, 1314, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templars,
was burned on a pyre erected upon that point of the islet of the Seine, at
Paris, where afterwards was erected the statue of King Henry IV. (See The
Indian Religions, by Hargrave Jennings.) “It is mentioned as a tradition in
some of the accounts of the burning,” writes Jennings, “that Molay, ere he
expired, summoned Clement, the Pope who had pronounced the bull of abolition
against the Order and had condemned the Grand Master to the flames, to appear,
within forty days, before the Supreme Eternal judge, and Philip [the king] to
the same awful tribunal within the space of a year. Both predictions were
fulfilled.”
The close
relationship between Freemasonry and the original Knights Templars has caused
the story of Hiram to be linked with the martyrdom of Jacques de Molay.
According to this interpretation, the three ruffians who cruelly slew their
Master at the gates of the temple because he refused to reveal the secrets of
his Order represent the Pope, the king, and the executioners. De Molay died
maintaining his innocence and refusing to disclose the philosophical and
magical arcana of the Templars. Those who have sought to identify Hiram with
the murdered King Charles the First conceive the Hiramic legend to have been
invented for that purpose by Elias Ashmole, a mystical philosopher, who was
probably a member of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. Charles was dethroned in 1647
and died on the block in 1649, leaving the Royalist party leaderless. An
attempt has been made to relate the term “the Sons of the Widow” (an
appellation frequently applied to members of the Masonic Order) to this
incident in English history, for by the murder of her king England became a
Widow and all Englishmen Widow’s Sons.
To the mystic
Christian Mason, Hiram. represents the Christ who in three days (degrees)
raised the temple of His body from its earthly sepulcher. His three murderers
were Cæsar’s agent (the state), the Sanhedrin (the church), and the incited
populace (the mob). Thus considered, Hiram becomes the higher nature of man and
the murderers are ignorance, superstition, and fear. The indwelling Christ can
give expression to Himself in this world only through man’s thoughts, feelings,
and actions. Right thinking, right feeling, and right action – these are three
gates through which the Christ power passes into the material world, there to
labor in the erection of the Temple of Universal Brotherhood. Ignorance,
superstition, and
fear are three ruffians through whose agencies the Spirit of Good is murdered
and a false kingdom, controlled by wrong thinking, wrong feeling, and wrong
action, established in its stead. In the material universe evil appears ever
victorious.
“In this sense,”
writes Daniel Sickels, “the myth of the Tyrian is perpetually repeated in the
history of human affairs. Orpheus was murdered, and his body thrown into the
Hebrus; Socrates was made to drink the hemlock; and, in all ages, we have seen
Evil temporarily triumphant, and Virtue and Truth calumniated, persecuted,
crucified, and slain. But Eternal justice marches surely and swiftly through
the world: the Typhons, the children of darkness, the plotters of crime, all
the infinitely varied forms of evil, are swept into oblivion; and Truth and
Virtue – for a time laid low – come forth, clothed with diviner majesty, and
crowned with everlasting glory!” (See General Ahiman Rezon.)
If, as there is
ample reason to suspect, the modern Freemasonic Order was profoundly influenced
by, if it is not an actual outgrowth of, Francis Bacon’s secret society, its
symbolism is undoubtedly permeated with Bacon’s two great ideals: universal
education and universal democracy. The deadly enemies of universal education
are ignorance, superstition, and fear, by which the human soul is held in
bondage to the lowest part of its own constitution. The arrant enemies of
universal democracy have ever been the crown, the tiara, and the torch. Thus
Hiram symbolizes that ideal state of spiritual, intellectual, and
physical
emancipation which has ever been sacrificed upon the altar of human
selfishness. Hiram is the Beautifier of the Eternal House. Modern
utilitarianism, however, sacrifices the beautiful for the practical, in the
same breath declaring the obvious lie that selfishness, hatred, and discord are
practical.
Dr. Orville Ward
Owen found a considerable part of the first thirty-two degrees of Freemasonic
ritualism hidden in the text of the First Shakespeare Folio. Masonic emblems
are to be observed also upon the title pages of nearly every book published by
Bacon. Sir Francis Bacon considered himself as a living sacrifice upon the
altar of human need; he was obviously cut down in the midst of his labors, and
no student of his New Atlantis can fail to recognize the Masonic symbolism
contained therein. According to the observations of Joseph Fort Newton, the
Temple of Solomon described by Bacon in that utopian romance was not a house at
all but the name of an ideal state. Is it not true that the Temple of
Freemasonry is also emblematic of a condition of society? While, as before
stated, the principles of the Hiramic legend are of the greatest antiquity, it
is not impossible that its present form may be based upon incidents in the life
of Lord Bacon, who passed through the philosophic death and was raised in Germany.
In an old manuscript
appears the statement that the Freemasonic Order was formed by alchemists and
Hermetic philosophers who had banded themselves together to protect their
secrets against the infamous methods used by avaricious persons to wring from
them the secret of gold-making. The fact that the Hiramic legend contains an
alchemical formula gives credence to this story. Thus the building of Solomon’s
Temple represents the consummation of the magnum opus, which cannot be realized
without the assistance of Hiram, the Universal Agent. The Masonic Mysteries
teach the initiate how to prepare within his own soul a miraculous powder of
projection by which it is possible for him to transmute the base lump of human
ignorance, perversion, and discord into an ingot of spiritual and philosophic
gold.
Sufficient
similarity exists between the Masonic
Hiram and the Kundalini of Hindu mysticism to warrant the assumption
that Hiram may be considered a symbol also of the Spirit Fire moving through
the sixth ventricle of the spinal column. The exact science of human
regeneration is the Lost Key of Masonry, for when the Spirit Fire is lifted up
through the thirty-three degrees, or segments of the spinal column, and enters
into the domed chamber of the human skull, it finally passes into the pituitary
body (Isis), where it invokes Ra (the pineal gland) and demands the Sacred
Name. Operative Masonry, in the fullest meaning of that term, signifies the
process by which the Eye of Horus is opened.
E. A. Wallis Budge
has noted that in some of the papyri illustrating the entrance of the souls of
the dead into the judgment hall of Osiris the deceased person has a pine cone
attached to the crown of his head. The Greek mystics also carried a symbolic staff,
the upper end being in the form of a pine cone, which was called the thyrsus of
Bacchus. In the human brain there is a tiny gland called the pineal body, which
is the sacred eye of the ancients, and corresponds to the third eye of the
Cyclops. Little is known concerning the function of the pineal body, which
Descartes suggested (more wisely than he knew) might be the abode of the spirit
of man. As its name signifies, the pineal gland is the sacred pine cone in man
– the eye single, which cannot be opened until Hiram (the Spirit Fire) is
raised through the sacred seals which are called the Seven Churches in Asia.
There is an Oriental
painting which shows three sun bursts. One sunburst covers the head, in the
midst of which sits Brahma with four heads, his body a mysterious dark color.
The second sunburst – which covers the heart, solar plexus, and upper abdominal
region – shows Vishnu sitting in the blossom of the lotus on a couch formed of
the coils of the serpent of cosmic motion, its seven-hooded head forming a
canopy over the god. The third sunburst is over the generative system, in the
midst of which sits Shiva, his body a grayish white and the Ganges River
flowing out of the crown of his head. This painting was
the work of a Hindu
mystic who spent many years subtly concealing great philosophical principles
within these figures. The Christian legends could be related also to the human
body by the same method as the Oriental, for the arcane meanings hidden in the
teachings of both schools are identical.
As applied to
Masonry, the three sunbursts represent the gates of the temple at which Hiram
was struck, there being no gate in the north because the sun never shines from
the northern angle of the heavens. The north is the symbol of the physical
because of its relation to ice (crystallized water) and to the body
(crystallized spirit). In man the light shines toward the north but never from
it, because the body has no light of its own but shines with the reflected
glory of the divine life-particles concealed within physical substance. For
this reason the moon is accepted as the symbol of man’s physical nature.
Hiram is the
mysterious fiery, airy water which must be raised through the three grand
centers symbolized by the ladder with three rungs and the sunburst flowers
mentioned in the description of the Hindu painting. It must also pass upward by
means of the ladder of seven rungs-the seven plexuses proximate to the spine.
The nine segments of the sacrum and coccyx are pierced by ten foramina, through
which pass the roots of the Tree of Life. Nine is the sacred number of man, and
in the symbolism of the sacrum and coccyx a great mystery is concealed. That
part of the body from the kidneys downward was termed by the early Qabbalists
the Land of Egypt into which the children of Israel were taken during the
captivity. Out of Egypt, Moses (the illuminated mind, as his name implies) led
the tribes of Israel (the twelve faculties) by raising the brazen serpent in
the wilderness upon the symbol of the Tau cross. Not only Hiram but the god-men
of nearly every pagan Mystery ritual are personifications of the Spirit Fire in
the human spinal cord.
The astronomical
aspect of the Hiramic legend must not be overlooked. The tragedy of Hiram is
enacted annually by the sun during its passage through the signs of the zodiac.
“From the journey of
the Sun through the twelve signs,” writes Albert Pike, “come the legend of the
twelve labors of Hercules, and the incarnations of Vishnu and Buddha. Hence
came the legend of the murder of Khurum, representative of the Sun, by the three
Fellow-Crafts, symbols of the Winter signs, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces,
who assailed him at the three gates of Heaven and slew him at the Winter
Solstice. Hence the search for him by the nine Fellow-Crafts, the other nine
signs, his finding, burial, and resurrection.” (See Morals and Dogma.)
Other authors
consider Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius as the three murderers of the sun,
inasmuch as Osiris was murdered by Typhon, to whom were assigned the thirty
degrees of the constellation of Scorpio. In the Christian Mysteries also Judas
signifies the Scorpion, and the thirty pieces of silver for which he betrayed
His Lord represent the number of degrees in that sign. Having been struck by
Libra (the state), Scorpio (the church), and Sagittarius (the mob), the sun
(Hiram) is secretly home through the darkness by the signs of Capricorn,
Aquarius, and Pisces and buried over the brow of a hill (the vernal
equinox). Capricorn
has for its symbol an old man with a scythe in his hand. This is Father Time –
a wayfarer – who is symbolized in Masonry as straightening out the ringlets of
a young girl’s hair. If the Weeping Virgin be considered a symbol of Virgo, and
Father Time with his scythe a symbol of Capricorn, then the interval of ninety
degrees between these two signs will be found to correspond to that occupied by
the three murderers.
Esoterically, the
urn containing the ashes of Hiram represents the human heart. Saturn, the old
man who lives at the north pole, and brings with him to the children of men a
sprig of evergreen (the Christmas tree), is familiar to the little folks under
the name of Santa Claus, for he brings each winter the gift of a new year.
The martyred sun is
discovered by Aries, a Fellow-Craftsman, and at the vernal equinox the process
of raising him begins. This is finally accomplished by the Lion of Judah, who
in ancient times occupied the position of the keystone of the Royal Arch of Heaven.
The precession of the equinoxes causes various signs to play the rôle of the
murderers of the sun during the different ages of the world, but the principle
involved remains unchanged. Such is the cosmic story of Hiram, the Universal
Benefactor, the Fiery Architect: of the Divine House, who carries with him to
the grave that Lost Word which, when spoken, raises all life to power and
glory. According to Christian mysticism, when the Lost Word is found it is
discovered in a stable, surrounded by beasts and marked by a star.
“After the sun
leaves Leo,” writes Robert Hewitt Brown, “the days begin to grow unequivocally
shorter as the sun declines toward the autumnal equinox, to be again slain by
the three autumnal months, lie dead through the three winter ones, and be
raised again by the three vernal ones. Each year the great tragedy is repeated,
and the glorious resurrection takes place.” (See Stellar Theology and Masonic
Astronomy.)
Hiram is termed dead
because in the average individual the cosmic creative forces are limited in
their manifestation to purely physical – and correspondingly materialistic –
expression. Obsessed by his belief in the reality and permanence of physical
existence, man does not correlate the material universe with the blank north
wall of the temple. As the solar light symbolically is said to die as it
approaches the winter solstice, so the physical world may be termed the winter
solstice of the spirit. Reaching the winter solstice, the sun apparently stands
still for three days and then, rolling away the stone of winter, begins its
triumphal march north towards the summer solstice. The condition of ignorance
may be likened to the winter solstice of philosophy; spiritual understanding to
the summer solstice. From this point of view, initiation into the Mysteries
becomes the vernal equinox of the spirit, at which time the Hiram in man
crosses from the realm of mortality into that of eternal life. The autumnal
equinox is analogous to the mythological fall of man, at which time the human
spirit descended into the realms of Hades by being immersed in the illusion of
terrestrial existence.
In An Essay on the
Beautiful, Plotinus describes the refining effect of beauty upon the unfolding
consciousness of man. Commissioned to decorate the Everlasting House, Hiram
Abiff is the embodiment
of the beautifying
principle. Beauty is essential to the natural unfoldment of the human soul. The
Mysteries held that man, in part at least, was the product of his environment.
Therefore they considered
it imperative that
every person be surrounded by objects which would evoke the highest and noblest
sentiments. They
proved that it was possible to produce beauty in life by surrounding life with
beauty.
They discovered that
symmetrical bodies were built by souls continuously in the presence of
symmetrical bodies; that noble thoughts were produced by minds surrounded by
examples of mental nobility. Conversely, if a man were forced to look upon an
ignoble or asymmetrical structure it would arouse within him a sense of
ignobility which would provoke him to commit ignoble deeds. If an
ill-proportioned building were erected in the midst of a city there would be
ill-proportioned children born in that community; and men and women, gazing
upon the asymmetrical structure, would live inharmonious lives. Thoughtful men
of antiquity realized that their great philosophers were the natural
products of the
æsthetic ideals of architecture, music, and art established as the standards of
the cultural systems of the time.
The substitution of
the discord of the fantastic for the harmony of the beautiful constitutes one
of the great tragedies of every civilization. Not only were the Savior-Gods of
the ancient world beautiful, but each performed a ministry of beauty, seeking
to effect man’s regeneration by arousing within him the love of the beautiful.
A renaissance of the golden age of fable can be made possible only by the
elevation of beauty to its rightful dignity as the all-pervading, idealizing
quality in the religious, ethical, sociological, scientific, and political
departments of life. The Dionysiac Architects were consecrated to the raising
of their Master Spirit – Cosmic Beauty – from the sepulcher of material
ignorance and
selfishness by
erecting buildings which were such perfect exemplars of symmetry and majesty
that they were actually magical formulæ by which was evoked the spirit of the
martyred Beautifier entombed within a materialistic world.
In the Masonic
Mysteries the triune spirit of man (the light Delta) is symbolized by the three
Grand Masters of the Lodge of Jerusalem. As God is the pervading principle of
three worlds, in each of which He manifests as an active principle, so the
spirit of man, partaking of the nature of Divinity, dwells upon three planes of
being: the Supreme, the Superior, and the Inferior spheres of the Pythagoreans.
At the gate of the Inferior sphere (the underworld, or dwelling place of mortal
creatures) stands the guardian of Hades – the three – headed dog Cerberus, who
is analogous to the three murderers of the Hiramic
legend.
According to this
symbolic interpretation of the triune spirit, Hiram is the third, or
incarnating, part – the Master Builder who through all ages erects living
temples of flesh and blood as shrines of the Most High. Hiram comes forth as a
flower and is cut down; he dies at the gates of matter; he is buried in the
elements of creation, but – like Thor – he swings his mighty hammer in the
fields of space, sets the primordial atoms in motion, and establishes order out
of Chaos. As the potentiality of cosmic power within each human soul, Hiram
lies waiting for man by the elaborate ritualism of life to transmute
potentiality into
divine potency. As the sense perceptions of the individual increase, however,
man gains ever greater control over his various parts, and the spirit of life
within gradually attains freedom. The three murderers represent the laws of the
Inferior world – birth, growth, and decay – which ever frustrate the plan of
the Builder. To the average individual, physical birch actually signifies the
death of Hiram, and physical death the resurrection of Hiram. To the initiate,
however, the resurrection of the spiritual nature is accomplished without the
intervention of physical death.
The curious symbols
found in the base of Cleopatra’s Needle now standing in Central Park, New York,
were interpreted as being of first Masonic significance by S. A. Zola, 33° Past
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Egypt. Masons’ marks and symbols are to be
found on the stones of numerous public buildings not only in England and on the
Continent but also in Asia. In his Indian Masons’ Marks of the Moghul Dynasty,
A. Gorham describes scores of markings appearing on the walls of buildings such
as the Taj Mahal, the Jama Masjid, and that: famous Masonic structure, the
Kutab Minar. According to those who regard Masonry as an outgrowth of the
secret society of architects and builders which for thousands of years formed a
caste of master craftsmen, Hiram Abiff was the Tyrian Grand Master of a
world-wide organization of artisans, with headquarters in Tyre.
Their philosophy
consisted of incorporating into the measurements and ornamentation of temples,
palaces, mausoleums, fortresses, and other public buildings their knowledge of
the laws controlling the universe. Every initiated workman was given a hieroglyphic
with which he marked the stones he trued to show to all posterity that he thus
dedicated to the Supreme Architect of the Universe each perfected product of
his labor. Concerning Masons’ marks, Robert Freke Gould writes:
“It is very
remarkable that these marks are to be found in all countries – in the chambers
of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, on the underground walls of Jerusalem, in
Herculaneum and Pompeii, on Roman walls and Grecian temples, in Hindustan,
Mexico, Peru, Asia Minor – as well as on the great ruins of England,
France, Germany,
Scotland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.” (See A Concise History of Freemasonry.)
From this viewpoint
the story of Hiram may well represent the incorporation of the divine secrets
of architecture into the actual parts and dimensions of earthly buildings. The
three degrees of the Craft bury the Grand Master (the Great Arcanum) in the actual
structure they erect, after first having killed him with the builders’ tools,
by reducing the dimensionless Spirit of Cosmic Beauty to the limitations of
concrete form. These abstract ideals of architecture can be resurrected,
however, by the Master Mason who, by meditating upon the structure, releases
therefrom the divine principles of architectonic philosophy incorporated or
buried within it. Thus the physical building is actually the tomb or embodiment
of the Creative Ideal of which its material dimensions are but the shadow.
Moreover, the
Hiramic legend may be considered to embody the vicissitudes of philosophy
itself. As institutions for the dissemination of ethical culture, the pagan
Mysteries were the architects of civilization. Their power and dignity were
personified in Hiram Abiff – the Master Builder – but they eventually fell a
victim to the onslaughts of that recurrent trio of state, church, and mob. They
were desecrated by the state, jealous of their wealth and power; by the early
church, fearful of their wisdom; and by the rabble or soldiery incited by both
state and church. As Hiram when raised from his grave whispers the Master
Mason’s Word which was lost through his untimely death, so according to the
tenets of philosophy the reestablishment or resurrection of the ancient
Mysteries will result in the rediscovery of that secret teaching without which
civilization must continue in a state of spiritual confusion and uncertainty.
When the mob
governs, man is ruled by ignorance; when the church governs, he is ruled by
superstition; and when the state governs, he is ruled by fear. Before men can
live together in harmony and understanding, ignorance must be transmuted into
wisdom, superstition into an illumined faith, and fear into love. Despite
statements to the contrary, Masonry is a religion seeking to unite God and man
by elevating its initiates to that level of consciousness whereon they can
behold with clarified vision the workings of the Great Architect of the
Universe. From age to age the vision of a perfect civilization is preserved as
the ideal for mankind. In the midst of that civilization shall stand a mighty
university wherein both the sacred and secular sciences concerning the
mysteries of life will be freely taught to all who will assume the philosophic
life. Here creed and dogma will have no place; the superficial will be removed
and only the essential be preserved. The world will be ruled by its most
illumined minds, and each will occupy the position for which he is most
admirably fitted.
The great university
will be divided into grades, admission to which will be through preliminary
tests or initiations. Here mankind will be instructed in the most sacred, the
most secret, and the most enduring of all Mysteries – Symbolism. Here the initiate
will be taught that every visible object, every abstract thought, every
emotional reaction is but the symbol of an eternal principle. Here mankind will
learn that Hiram (Truth) lies buried in every atom of Kosmos; that every form
is a symbol and every symbol the tomb of an eternal verity. Through education –
spiritual, mental, moral, and physical – man will learn to release living
truths from their lifeless coverings. The perfect government of the earth must
be patterned eventually after that divine government by which the universe is
ordered. In that day when perfect order is reestablished, with peace universal
and good triumphant, men will no longer seek for happiness, for they shall find
it welling up within themselves. Dead hopes, dead aspirations, dead virtues
shall rise from their graves, and the Spirit of Beauty and Goodness repeatedly
slain by ignorant men shall again be the Master of Work. Then shall sages sit
upon the seats of the mighty and the gods walk with men.