The Obligation to secrecy follows in form that in the First Degree and to it apply the same observations as were made in that Degree. Therein it was explained that secrecy is imposed not merely to protect the Order from the divulging of its formal secrets, but in the Candidate's own interest and to teach him the art and the value of silence. Secrecy, in fact, forms part of his personal discipline. For, in its deeper sense, secrecy involves concentration; the indrawing of one's powers instead of diffusing them needlessly; the conservation of energy needed for strengthening and upbuilding the soul and husbanding its forces. "Waste not, want not" applies to one's inner energies as well as to one's outer goods. Silence secretes power and wisdom; their secretion is itself a secret, an incommunicable mystery to be learned only by those who practice meditation and observe silence.
"The secrets of each Degree are to be kept separate and distinct from those in the former," says the Ritual. Reflect, therefore, in what respect those of the Second Degree are "separate and distinct" from those of the First. The secret of the First Degree had to do with the head, i.e., with the practical everyday intelligence and the performance of active duties. But those of the Second Degree are different; they are secrets of the heart or soul; of the intuitional and affectional side of our nature, which is subjective and passive. The Candidate for self-knowledge has to train himself to understand and discipline both his head and his heart, to balance activity with contemplation; to labor zealously at practicing virtue and his external Masonic duties, especially the control of his sense-nature, but also to "study to be quiet," to watch for and examine perceptions, enthusiasms and passional urges (whether good or bad) that well up from within him; above all to listen for the "still small voice" that may be heard speaking in his heart when the winds of passion drop and the tremors of the senses subside.
This distinction between the things of the head and those of the heart accounts for the difference in the posture assumed by the Candidate when taking his Obligation. If we recall that in the Craft as in the Scriptures the right side and limbs of the body are associated with the head and the left with the heart, we shall readily see why, at the Obligation, complementary parts of the Candidate are exposed or covered. For both head and heart, though intimately related, have their distinct functions and must be separately understood by those who seek knowledge of themselves. Both are as necessary to us as the two sides of the body, but until the head is so enlightened by the heart that reason and intuition function in unity and cannot act separately, either of them may prove a terribly treacherous and misleading faculty. Wrongheadedness is far more common than evil-heartedness and responsible for far more mischief and suffering, because we are prone to form our judgments by the darkened carnal reason, in preference to consulting the luminous intuitions of the heart. Let us recall the Biblical injunction, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth!", by which we must understand that the heart will often have to refuse its sanction to the impulses of the head.
The penal provisions of the Obligation call for notice. They too are appropriate and instructive. In the First Degree the penalty related to the head; we saw that infidelity in the form of abuse of speech occultly reacted upon the voice, in the sense that all power of spiritual utterance might vanish from it. In the Second Degree the penalty relates to the heart, which, if unfaithful, may become sterile and uprooted. In the Third Degree Obligation we shall find still a third region of the body imperiled.
Let no one imagine that these penalties are introduced by way of hyperbole or that the three separate regions of the human organism to which they are related are mentioned without both purpose and justification, even if we fail as yet to appreciate the reasons for them. And since the penalties are such that, in existing social conditions, their literal exaction is unthinkable, the description of them may strike us as needlessly barbaric and blood-thirsty. We shall be wiser, however, if we treat them as having veiled significances and as intended by their very frightfulness to serve as danger-signals, warning us that infidelity to one's solemn dedications is a very serious sin and one entailing correspondingly terrible physical and spiritual reactions analogous to the physical penalties mentioned in the Obligations. To those who treat our Ritual as but formality these considerations will carry no weight, but since such know nothing as yet of what is meant by "spiritual wickedness in high places" they are unlikely to commit it in any serious measure or to attract the penalties that attend it. But the informed Brother will know that it is possible to sin psychically as well as physically and will be aware that there exist sound psycho-physiological reasons for the references, in the penal provisions, to certain parts of the body, and that the prescribed penalties have a singular though concealed propriety to the offenses involved.
The subject cannot be pursued here, but the point of it all is that we are most strongly warned to "keep the heart with all diligence" and to protect it "from the attacks of the insidious," a warning which the Ritual emphasizes again and again.
Who, or what, are "the insidious"? The expression may, of course, be taken as referring to inquisitive busy-bodies anxious to pry into things they are not entitled to know. But as common sense will enable us to deal with such, this explanation is altogether too shallow and we had better look for one more in keeping with the obvious gravity and solemnity of the subject. Now in the penal clause of the Obligation is a reference to the heart being thrown to "the ravenous birds of the air as a prey." Lest this phrase also be deemed fantastic imagery, let us remind ourselves that it is taken from the Old Testament where it occurs more than once and is used in a terribly realistic sense. (See Ezek. 39; 4, and Is. 34, 11-15). "Ravenous beasts" and "ravenous birds of the air" are Scriptural terms for invisible evil entities and intelligences which infest our planetary atmosphere and find easy prey and nesting places in hearts allowing them entrance. Classical literature also abounds in allusions to these "harpies," "furies" and "vultures" and to their tormenting power. Modern psychology, sceptical of the ancient science, speaks of these "powers of the air" more prosaically, as obsessions by alien wills, as secondary personalities, uncontrollable impulses and uprushes from the subconscious, the unhappy victims of which are often relegated to asylums for the mentally afflicted. It is these which are referred to as "the insidious", from whose invasion the heart has to be "shielded" and "kept." In many ways not necessary to mention here it is possible to succumb to their attacks and, though this subject is one to which the average Brother of today gives little heed, this explanation would be incomplete if it failed to elucidate the reference to the "ravenous birds of the air" and to point out that those who venture into "the more hidden paths of nature and science" are indeed exposed to certain real dangers from the "air" or plane of mind upon which much of the work of the Second Degree is meant to be conducted. Because those dangers are real our Obligation expressly refers to them before the Ritual goes on to say that "you are now permitted to extend your researches into the more hidden paths of nature". Until one possesses a high degree of personal purity, virtue and understanding, such research is not ''permitted", the Craft thus perpetrating a principle uniformly insisted on by teachers of wisdom throughout the ages. One of the greatest of these declared that "where the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered together", implying that if the human personality suffers itself to become passive and evacuated of its controlling principle, to lose contact with the central spiritual Ego appointed to dominate it, it becomes as but an empty shell or "carcass" liable to invasion by all manner of undesirable and insidious entities.
To the man of strong virtue and level-headedness, who knows beforehand what he is doing and acts under a competent teacher, there is no danger in venturing into "the hidden paths". He will act, and with safety, upon the age-old enjoinder of. the Mysteries "To know; to will; to dare; and to keep silent."
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