I
We are now to examine a Ceremony which, because it is less dramatic and spectacular than that of the First Degree, is often regarded as a somewhat colorless interlude between the impressive surprises of the one which proceeds and the awesome grandeur of the one which follows it.
This feeling it is desirable to remove, as unjustified. If the introduction of a Candidate to the elementary knowledge of Masonic principles, represented by the First Degree, has meant much to him, his advancement to a higher grade of the Craft should surely mean much more, not less, both to him and to ourselves; whilst the Ceremony which sacramentally signifies that advancement should, as surely, be one of greater value and purport than its predecessor. If we fail to recognize this, had we not better inquire whether the fault lies rather in our own lack of perception than in the Ceremony? Do we ourselves possess the insight requisite for the understanding of a Ceremony which claims to mark a much higher degree of progress in the work of making a Mason and assisting him to a much more advanced level of spiritual attainment than he has yet known? So our present study is made in the hope of revealing some of the Ceremony's usually undiscerned and extremely valuable contents, and with the view of securing greater interest in it than it usually receives. Being a "veil of allegory" the Ceremony must not only be looked at but looked through, if its significance is to be realized. Merely to look at it and treat it as a formality is like looking at a closed box containing valuables, and ignoring the contents.
Before the Grand Lodge formation in 1717 the Ceremony in its present form and as a distinct rite did not exist, and its compilation belongs to that confused and nebulous transitional period during which the ancient principles of our mystical science were reduced to our present tri-graclal system. This purely historical question may be left to the historians and archaeologists, our present purpose being solely interpretative. There is no doubt, however, that the Ritual now in common use (with local variations) suffers from cuts and misunderstandings of the 18th century compilers and contains errors of statement since made by not too well informed or educated Brethren and still perpetuated by those who are too conservative to sanction any correction. It is also the fact that at one time and in some Lodges the work now forming the Mark Mason Degree constituted part of the Second Degree, as it still does in Scotland, being a side branch or annexe to it, much as the Royal Arch Degree is an extension of the Third Degree. By the Act of Union between the two Grand Lodges of English Masons in 1813 it was solemnly declared that "pure Ancient Masonry" consisted of our present three Craft Degrees, including the Royal Arch, and no more, the Mark work being thus eliminated by consent of both sections of Masons. In 1856 an attempt was made to restore it into the Craft Degrees but was ruled out by Grand Lodge upon the ground that to do so would infringe the express terms of the Act of Union and the constitutions which every Master of a Lodge is pledged to observe. The Mark work therefore became side-tracked under a separate constitution of its own and is available to any Brother who desires to acquire it. The merits of the Mark Degree are so high that the regret of many Brethren at its disassociation from our Second Degree is not surprising. Moreover, it contains the dramatic and spectacular elements which are lacking in the latter Degree, for which also much can justifiably be urged. The matter of its inclusion or exclusion in the Second Degree having, however, been definitely settled since 1856, it is useless now to pursue the arguments for and against any further, and it is only mentioned here to lead up to the view of the Second Degree which is about to be offered in this paper.
That view is based upon the conviction that, in the wisdom which (despite much blundering on the part of its human instruments) has always inspired and guided our Craft since its inception, it was deemed desirable that one Ceremony of its series should be definitely less spectacularly attractive than the others. This for two good reasons.
Firstly, whilst dramatic ritual and spectacle have immense value in their appeal to the imagination and in awakening the mind to the truths they are designed to express, there is nevertheless a risk of their becoming valued for their own sake rather than for their significance. In that case they not only cease to promote real advancement; they actually hinder it. That is, the inevitable risk attaching to all ritualism. Gorgeous and impressive as were the spectacles of the Ancient Mysteries they nevertheless made wise provision for a considerable part in every Candidate's training to consist of silence, solitude, and experiences involving a complete absence of all form and ceremony and of all reliance upon outside help, so that he might be thrown back upon himself, might learn that there are truths which speak by silence and which only silence can express, and might be brought to realize that true Initiation depends upon inward experience of what is formless and spiritual rather than upon anything imparted by formal and external methods.
Secondly, in the Craft's tri-gradal scheme the Second Degree has especially to do with the inner man and the inner life, rather than with the outward personality. The re-ordering of the life and conduct of the outward man formed the subject of the First Degree; the purpose of which was to set his face definitely towards the East and make him virtuous by right living and self-purification. But the Second Degree is directed more especially to his intellectuality, so that the purified understanding of the man of virtue may be crowned with wisdom and attain that intellectual light which is called interior illumination. But this is a process and an experience of purely subjective and psychological character, which is difficult, or even impossible, to dramatize and make spectacular, and is therefore wisely left to silence and the reverent imagination.
Let us, then, regard this Ceremony as deliberately designed to stand in marked contrast with the other two, so that it may impress by what is implied but left unformulated. The fault will be our own if we still find dull and lacking interest a Ceremony which really glows with rarer light and greater instructiveness than its predecessor.
II
The Ceremony is called one of "passing", since it relates to a midway, transitional phase of personal experience through which every aspirant to perfection must inevitably pass before he can think of attaining the ultimate degree of soul-development and mastership to which our system leads. The First Degree began in darkness and, as we have already seen, involved an entrance into new life and the first glimpsing of new and supra-natural Light. Although addressed to the Candidate's personality in its entirety, its message was primarily addressed to his exterior nature, to his reason, and it stressed the necessity of the practice of virtue as a preliminary to his subsequently being assisted to still larger experience of Light. That discipline being presumed to have been undergone, the time comes when he is qualified for further advancement. It is now not his reason and senses but his higher and more interior nature, his soul, his mind, and emotions that are addressed and hoped to be advanced to a greater measure of self-knowledge, control and illumination. He is to take an upward step in his own evolution, to enter upon and explore a higher story of his own being with a view to understanding and controlling it, just as he is assumed to understand and control his bodily nature. On his journey from the realm of the senses to that of the ultimate spirit he must needs pass through an intermediate region, that of the soul or mind, which is the half-way house between the sensible and the spiritual. Hence the three Degrees of Masonic progress, from (1) the darkness or benightedness of the natural reason, to (2) illumination (lumen) of the mind, and thence to (3) the ultimate enduring . Light (lux) of the Spirit - and hence the present Ceremony being called one of "passing" from the first to the third of these. All growth is gradual and involves a series of efforts before we can come to full knowledge of what we ultimately are. Non uno itinere perveniri potest ad tam grande secret um; not at a single essay can we win through to so sublime a secret as the Craft enshrines.
Now were we true to our Symbolism and not hampered by exigencies of space and expense, we should not confer this Passing Ceremony in the same room or upon the same, floor-level as that in which that of the First Degree was performed. We should go upstairs to another room, to an "upper chamber", made ready as a Fellow Craft Lodge, and we should mount to it, as our Hebrew forbears did, by a winding staircase and there open the Lodge in the Second Degree and confer the Ceremony. By so doing we should more vividly impress both ourselves and the Candidate with the fact that we and he were now withdrawing to a still farther remove from the outer world and from things of sense, and were ascending upwards and inwards to a finer and more subtle plane of being and to dealing with the more abstract life of the mind and understanding.
"They went up, by winding stairs, into the middle chamber" (1. Kings 6 ; 8). We can still visualize the Hebrew Initiates mounting from the ground floor of their symbolic temple to the middle storey or "holy place," chanting as they went their "Songs of ascent" or "Songs of Degrees," as some of their Temple Hymns are called in the Bible, e.g., "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or rise up into his holy hill?" (Ps. 24; 3). But it is the human mind (or soul) which is the "middle chamber" actually signified, since it stands midway between things sensible and things spiritual, and it is it which must be treated as the intermediate "holy place" to be passed through before that ultimate "holy of holies" is reached where everything sensible, material, and even mental, is transcended and only those who are high priests of the Spirit can, "after many washings and purifications," enter.
Even in Christian churches this ancient
symbolism of a gradual ascent from the material to the spiritual
is preserved in the steps which lead from the nave to the chancel
(or "middle chamber") and finally from the chancel to
the sanctuary and high altar. In our Lodges, since space necessitates
our using the same room for all our Degrees, we secure the idea
of ascending to progressively higher levels by ceremonially "opening
up" from one Degree to another and exposing in each the appropriate
Lodge Board or Tracing Board. But in doing this we should never
forget that each such "opening" implies an uplift of
mind and heart to a much higher level of contemplation than was
called for in the Degree below it.
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