Interpreting Masonic Ritual by Patterson Oscar III;

Author:Patterson, Oscar, III;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Hamilton Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Note

1. Victor Turner. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. (New York: PAJ Publications), 198 p. 15.

Chapter 6

Esotericism in Ritual

When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says

but what it means,

a precept that the commentators on the holy books

very clearly had in mind.

—Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose

Pigpen cipher.

Masonic ritual is strongly based in the Western philosophical esoteric tradition and the societies which utilized it which permeated Europe beginning in the sixteenth century and found their expression in the United States beginning in the eighteenth century. The symbols of the square, compasses, plumb, level, star, columns, and rose, coupled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with a renewed interested in astrology, enabled special forms of thought to be transmitted throughout a community. Symbols and reality were placed into a concordism which displayed Nature’s harmony and aided in the acquisition of knowledge about each. The cosmos was perceived as a complex and multilayered structure in which “light” or some type of “hidden” knowledge, often described as fire, was obtainable through contemplation. To know the world and man’s place in it—a sense of gnosis—led to a meditative world filled with symbolic representations of the triad of God, Humanity, and Nature.

Esotericism provides for the development and expansion of serendipitous thinking which enables the individual to imagine and meditate. The imagination facilitates the development of symbols and images into a fuller understanding of spiritual mysteries. It is a tool for knowledge of the world, the self, and the myth or legend. It reveals significations and serves to enlarge our world view. Visionary imagination as a philosophy took full form at the beginning of the seventeenth century concurrent with the rise of Freemasonry in Europe and was influenced directly by both Jewish and Christian esoteric traditions.

The esoteric tradition has traditionally embraced the concept of transmutation as an essential component. This aspect of the tradition is often misinterpreted to mean the physical change of a base element into a precious one. The true importance of esotericism as well as of initiation rituals, however, is representative of a transformation or passage from one place to another or one status to another, and not of one substance to another. A metamorphosis takes place through esoteric ritual which represents a renewal, a second chance, another opportunity, or a reaffirmation. It may also be viewed as an attempt to recover something that has been lost. A new path is taken and an old one is discarded. This mystical tradition includes purgation (divestment), illumination, and unification. This archetypical approach to tradition is most marked in “modern” times beginning in the late fifteenth century with the Renaissance and extended into the Enlightenment as well as into the modern world. It led to new academic explorations and influenced the study of comparative religion. It is soundly based in the concept that there is an overarching truth found in all religious and esoteric traditions. And this truth may be taught or transmitted because the knowledge is valid and the initiation is a master to disciple process.

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