Meanwhile the Brethren have reconstituted themselves into a F. C. Assembly by raising the Lodge to the Second Degree. As we have learned previously, that raising implies a corresponding uplift and tension of mind on the part of all present, a sursuin corda, an elevation of the imagination to a loftier level than was called for in the First Degree. For in this Degree we are to pass-and to help the Candidate to pass-beyond the concrete things of time and space to the realm of the supra-sensual, the more abstract world of mind, of ideas, of soul. "They went up by winding stairs"; and we too are meant, in this Degree, to make an imaginative ascent to "a rarer a ether, a diviner air", than that we breathed in the previous Degree.
This explains why the Lodge is now declared "opened upon the S". That simple builder's tool takes on for the Speculative Mason a philosophical value. It is one composed of two arms joined at a right angle; one arm being horizontal, the other vertical. When one arm is laid level on the ground the other stands erect, pointing upwards. Those two arms then become a similitude of the right relationship of body and soul when we are engaged in the mystical labor of the Second Degree. The bodily energies (represented by the horizontal arm) should subside into repose and passivity, while the higher faculties of mind and soul (represented by the upright arm) should become active and aspire upwards. Then, as one of the old texts says, "the sleep of the body becomes the awakening of the soul, and the closing of the eyes true vision"; whilst an early Initiate (Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene) refers to the same truth in stating: "You who have been initiated in the Mysteries know there to be two pairs of eyes (the bodily and the mental) and that the lower pair must be shut when the upper pair open, and that when the latter pair close the lower ones re-open."
Every Brother present, therefore, is required to "prove himself" a Mason of this Degree; which means he must demonstrate by a ceremonial gesture that, for the work in hand, his outward and inward energies stand in the relationship symbolized by the arms of the S., the former temporarily dormant, the latter in a state of activity, uprightness and aspiration. Only upon the supposition that all those present "prove themselves" united in this condition can the Lodge really be "opened upon the S.", and its work upon the Candidate be effectually performed. When a whole Lodge consists of Brethren each of whom is indeed a living S. for the time being, it may be imagined that a wonderful atmosphere is created for the reception of the Candidate, how appropriately the Lodge can in those circumstances be declared to be "open upon the S.," and how favorable are the conditions for the fulfillment of the invocation by the Master that "the rays of heaven may shed their blessed and benign influence upon us and enlighten us in the more hidden paths of nature and science".
Thus the Opening must not be created as mere formality. It is a solemnity by which the stage becomes set, the atmosphere created, and the minds of the Brethren unified and attuned for the work about to be clone. More desirable is it than even in the former Degree that perfect silence should prevail and that no disturbance, conversation or moving from one's place, should mar the quietude and serenity which the Ceremony presupposes. As before, the Master should invite the co-operation of those present by uniting with him in prayerful concentrated thought upon the work about to be performed.
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