In our study of the First Ceremony it was pointed out that, following upon the Obligation, that Ceremony reached its peak point at the Restoration to Light. In the present Ceremony, however, no such corresponding culmination occurs; at the conclusion of the Obligation the officiating Master usually hurries on with the Ritual without break or pause. This, it is submitted, is a grievous mistake and indicates a failure to realize the spirit and implication of the ritual at this point.
Let us examine the position. As the two Ceremonies run on parallel lines (being alike in general form and differing only in necessary details), one would expect to find, following the Second Degree Obligation, a dramatic climax corresponding with and complementary to the act of restoration to light in the First Degree. But no such climax is provided; something seems lacking at this point; the emotional crescendo of the Ceremony, after moving towards a culmination, seems suddenly to stop short and never reaches it. Does this mean that the Ritual is defective here or that, in the course of time, some ceremonial incident corresponding with the restoration to light has dropped out and ceased to be worked? In my submission, no. In my view the Second Ceremony, like the First, does reach a true climax after the Obligation, but a climax which is, and is meant to be, a passive non-spectacular one, a climax to be expressed in and by silence as the climax in the First Degree was expressed by the sound of the Fiat Lux! and the thunder-clap of hands.
Obviously the real culmination of the Passing Ceremony must be the moment when the Candidate's consciousness is presumed to experience a change by "passing" from a lower to a higher level; and the context of the Ceremony shows that that "passing" is presumed to be effected immediately following his covenant to keep his new experience secret. Such an experience must needs be of a subjective and silent character. No uttered word, no ceremonial gesture, is capable of symbolizing what occurs in the middle chamber" or "holy place" of the human soul when it becomes illumined to perceive the secrets and mysteries of its own nature. What then occurs can be signified only by silence. Deus loquitur; taceant omnes doctores. When "the Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth (everything material) keep silence before Him".
To rattle on with the Ceremony at this point (as is usually done) is to mar it, to overlook its central point and purpose. The Obligation, it is suggested, should be followed by a pause sufficiently definite and prolonged to mark it as the supreme moment of the Ceremony,-a pause during which the upstanding Brethren should direct the full tension of their united thought towards the Candidate in the desire that the Light which in the former Degree was symbolically manifested to his outward eyes may now arise and shine inwardly in his heart.
Further, the Ceremony being essentially an aspiration that the Candidate may henceforth be illumined in his inward parts by Wisdom from above, it would be extremely apposite to conclude the pause referred to by reading a selection of versicles from the Wisdom books of the Bible, declaring what Wisdom is, and by what methods and in what circumstances Wisdom flows into the human mind. A suggested series of such versicles is Ecciesiasticus II., 1-5; III., 17-19 ; IV., 11-1.8 or Wisdom IV., 12-18; VIII., 1-7; IX., 1-11.
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