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The following article, as it stands, is really the joint
work of the
editor of this journal and Brother Dr. van der Gon, with
whom it is
an honor to be associated in any capacity. It has been
recast and
rewritten, at his request, owing to his difficulties in
dealing with
our English language, and also because brethren in Europe
write of
Masonry more openly than we are accustomed to do in
America. It
has been retouched here and there, additions and
subtractions
made, in the hope of clarifying what we have long held to
be the
true meaning of the noblest degree of Masonry. Our ritual
and
lectures leave the Degree a riddle, and we have no desire
to impose
the present interpretation upon the Craft; but we do
desire to help
Masons to discover something of the profound teaching in
this the
oldest, if not the greatest, drama known among men.
IN TRYING to set forth the meaning of the Third Degree it
is not
easy to find a starting point, unless we go back to the
rites of
antiquity and the initiations of the Middle Ages. In many
ages and
lands we find a system of three steps or degrees
portraying the
spiritual growth of man and his progress toward
perfection. In
some cases we find a larger number of steps, but they can
nearly
always be reduced to three.
The first step or degree has to do with the basic morality
which
underlies manhood, and upon which character rests. The
second
deals with the culture of the intellect without which man
remains a
child, as Cicero said, not knowing his own past. These
degrees
teach nothing that may not be known by a good profane.
With the
third step or degree it is different: it has to do with
the profoundest
mystery of humanity, and the most daring adventure of the
soul.
Such a system we find in the ancient Mysteries and in the
secret
societies of later ages, which formed a higher forum of
the general
religion. Using the popular religion as "the
preceding degree," so
to speak, they carried the faith of man further on and
higher up
toward fulfillment. The same is true, as to its main
intent, of our
ritual. So in Masonry we find three degrees, in which
nearly all the
symbols of antiquity reappear. The third step or degree is
much the
same as of old, though sometimes other names were used.
There is
always a myth very like our own, albeit differing in
detail, but all
of them, including our own, are but forms of one universal
myth of
man conquering death before he dies.
We must also understand, of course, that the word myth in
ancient
times had a very different meaning from what it has with
us.
Indeed, it had exactly the opposite meaning. With us a
myth is a
romance, a fiction, something more than the truth, or the
truth
highly colored - something unreal if not untrue. With the
ancients a
myth was something less than the truth, an effort to set
for a truth
too great for words, and only to be told in parable,
symbol and
drama - like the myths of Plato.
The whole idea of initiation, in three degrees, was to
portray the
process of the making of a man, his growth from infancy to
maturity, his qualification and training for his work in
the world,
and the faith and principles by which he is to be guided
in doing
his work. Its object was the training of men, to be loving
and
enlightened workers for good. Of course, as with us, this
object is
kept in the background, since if you tell a man that you
are about
to train him to be good, he will resent it and rebel.
It must be done
by indirection, by the strategy of seeming to do something
else, by
the psychology of surprise.
Few of the ancient rituals of initiation have reached us.
In those
that have been preserved different names, given either to
the
initiations or to those initiated, are used. But these
make little
trouble, since then, are only different descriptions of
the same
process. The Christian mystics used the following: first
degree,
purification; second degree, illumination; third degree,
unification.
Hippolytus used three picturesque names, Bound, Called,
Elect, in
which the same general plan, process and purpose are
recognizable.
The purification in the first degree is not only moral
purity, - which
is taken for granted - but, rather, a liberation from the
delusion of
the senses. Without such liberation it is impossible to
climb the
mountain of enlightenment; without it man remains
hoodwinked -
walking in darkness. The Sufis used the beautiful words:
"Purification of the heart of all that which is not
God." Others
speak of it as "discrimination," the power, the
insight to discern
between the real and the unreal, without which life is a
valley of
illusions. It is when man follows the unreal that he goes
wrong and
falls into the pit. In the Bernard Shaw play, Man and
Superman,
there is a famous scene in hell when Don Juan cries out:
"Nothing
is real here: that is the horror of damnation." The
First Degree of
Masonry, then, seeks to lead man out of the unreal life of
the
senses into his real life as a moral being.
Turning to the Second Degree, we find in a Dutch ritual of
1820
that the initiate has to climb "five mysterious steps
to see from
there the splendor of the Blazing Star and the mysterious
Letter." It
is the same process of illumination that we find in the
ancient
Mysteries, when the candidate climbs the Mountain of
Enlightenment, out of earthly dimness into the spiritual
life, nearer
to the Light - symbolized in the English ritual by the
staircase. In
the English ritual we read these words:
"You were led, in the second degree, to contemplate
the
intellectual faculty, and to trace it from its
development, through
paths of heavenly science, even to the throne of God
Himself. The
secrets of nature and the principles of intellectual truth
were then
unveiled to your view."
But intellectual knowledge is not enough. It is valuable
as far as it
goes, but it is not truth itself. In old Egypt and in
modern Masonry,
it sees only at a distance through a dividing, though
almost
transparent veil. If we compare it with the "direct
vision" of which
Plato speaks, the "eyewitnesses" of the
Eleusinian Mysteries, or
the words of St. John, "We shall see Him as He
is," we begin to
see the limits of intellectual truth. It is the difference
set forth by
St. Paul in his memorable words: "Now we see through
a glass
darkly, but then face to face;" now we know in part,
but then we
shall know in full.
There is, then, a higher truth to be known in a higher
way, and this
is the truth symbolized in the Third Degree.
Tauler, in the fourteenth century gave clear names to the
three
steps in the process: first, turning away from the world;
second,
retiring into ourselves; third, returning to God. In
short, to know
the highest truth we must not simply learn something, we
must
become something. It is a thing of self-experience, after
we have
been made ready for it. No one can learn this highest
truth for
another; no one can teach it to his fellow. Hence, as the
initiate sets
out upon this high adventure, he must pray for himself,
and walk a
lonely and difficult way wherein, if he proves worthy, he
will learn
the truth that makes all other truth true and worth while.
He must
not only master himself, but he must master the shadow
that waits
for every man, before he is in fact a Master Mason.
Let us now consider this mystery. Taken in general, the
symbolism
of death has two opposite meanings. There is, first, the
death of the
higher self to become the smaller self, the lower self.
Second, and
after a long struggle in "the grave of the
world" there is a death of
the lower self, to become again the higher and real Self,
which is
one with the Eternal. Here lies the great, deep meaning of
the Third
Degree of Masonry, and no higher truth can be taught or
learned
anywhere, if we have eyes to see and minds to understand.
It is not
a physical death, but a spiritual experience with which we
have to
do, transfiguring everything when we know it.
Many brethren fail to understand the Third Degree, either
because
they do not discriminate between these two opposite
meanings of
the symbolism of death, or because they are thinking in
terms of
physical death and miss the symbolism altogether. St. Paul
can
help us here. He speaks, first, of those who are
"dead in trespasses
and sins," meaning the fall into ignorance whereby a
man loses, or
seems to lose, his higher self and becomes a small,
separate,
limited self, living in the earthly life selfishly. He
speaks in the
second place, of a "death to sin," the death
which breaks through
separation and limitation into freedom and Eternal Life
even here
upon earth.
In some rituals of the Third Degree - the Dutch ritual,
for example
- the initiate enters the lodge backward - that is, he
moves eastward
but his face and feet are directed to the west, as if he
would turn
back to the life of the world; slowly advancing, but
looking
longingly toward the old life, which still has much of its
fascination. It is not so in the other degrees, and it is
a revealing
touch. For, in reality, there is a profound turning-point
in our
spiritual evolution as soon as we are able to take the
Third Degree
in full earnest. If we are capable of grasping its
meaning, even in
part, it will be of much use to us as far as brotherly
love and
devotion are concerned.
Perhaps we ordinary people cannot go much further. But we
have
to remember that there is nothing which lifts us up so
much as the
highest ideal which our inner eyes are able a little to
see, and that
we have to keep before our candidate, and before ourseIves,
not a
partly attainable but the highest ideal that exists for
him and us,
shining in its divine purity and beauty. Let me try to
give such an
approximation to the ideal of this great Degree of Masonry
as I am
able to see in the far future. To a certain degree it will
have to be
simplified for the candidate, and perhaps for each of us;
but I hope
I do not make a mistake in believing that I in writing,
and the
reader in reading, will find in it that which will re-echo
in the
depths of our hearts.
There Is, indeed, a turning point in this degree, and it
brings us
face to face with the noblest truth. There is a death of
the small,
limited self as a part of resurrection. The small self may
be
compared to the drawing together of molecules into a drop
of
water. The forces are directed inward on itself, in
selfishness. But
this may be necessary so as to produce an individual and a
server
of men. However, if the larger, truer self is to be
revealed, the
forces which are directed inward and tie together must
move
onward. Only self-forgetfulness is able to free the
contracting
forces. Truly, we must lose our life in order to save it.
This losing of our life in self-forgetfulness can only
follow upon
self-surrender to God and the world. Only those two
together result
in the falling asunder of the lower self and the
liberation of the
higher. When Odin said, "I dedicate myself to
Myself," he meant
the surrender of the limited, narrow self so that the
Eternal Self
may be all. As Maeterlinck exclaimed: "When shall we
become
that which we are?" When we are willing to let God
bring His son
to birth in us, over-coming the lower, lesser, restless,
selfish self,
and making us free indeed.
One finds this truth everywhere in Christian literature.
Jesus
became poor with the poor, hungry with the hungry,
childlike with
the children. As Luther was wont to say: "A Christian
is lord of
everything and submissive to nobody; a Christian is a
servant of
everything and submissive to everybody." It is only a
Master who
is the best servant. It is only the man who knows the
great secret
who can render the greatest service. When a man has
conquered
the small self by surrender to the Highest Self, he is
ready and
eager to return and help those who wander in a labyrinth
of ills,
who seek to fly the bitter chaos and do not know how to do
it.
How much we need real Master Masons in these days of
discord,
conflict, and hate in which we live! How many people in
all lands,
weary of strife and worn by woe, are ready to respond with
all their
souls to our Fraternity if we speak the redeeming word,
which they
long to hear. If we Master Masons in name were really
Masters in
fact - Masters because we have died to our selfish selves
and have
been resurrected to the true life of self-forgetful
service - how great
would be our power to lighten the burden of those who are
heavy
laden, by speaking the word of Eternity that can heal a
diseased
world and give hope for man and mankind.
A Master Mason must travel in foreign countries and work;
that is,
he must give to the world what he has gained for himself.
And not
only that, but he must also give that which he has become.
He has
become enlightened, and must go forth into the darkness of
the
world. He has become free, and he must take upon his
shoulders
the burden of others who are in slavery. He must be found
everywhere where the struggle is most severe, where
selfishness,
ignorance, hate, doubt, and despair are at their worst.
Such men the world needs, men who, led by compassion,
leave the
temple of Masonry with the holy resolution to help the
world. In
such men distinction and limitation disappear, and the
Divine Life
passes through them into the life of mankind. It is the
work of
Masonry to make not only Brothers and Builders, but
Masters of
the art of self-forgetful service to humanity in its
needs. In its
Master Degree it portrays the process by which such men
are made
by obedience to the law of Heavenly Death - the death,
that is, of
all that is unheavenly, and therefore unreal and unholy in
us.
Alas, many miss the meaning of this Degree because they
take it
literally, historically, materially. Here is an error. The
candidate
when raised is not thought of as having left us and gone
into the
hereafter; he is still in our midst. The ancients used the
word
immortality in another sense than we use it. They held
that the
corruptible must put on incorruption, and the mortal
immortality,
here and now. Mortal, corruptible, inconstant - that is
what we are
through separation and limitation; and the raising gives
us,
symbolically, immortality, incorruption, eternal life
while we are
still on earth. The old, narrow self is taken away and
buried, but
the true self lives the eternal life in time. My own view
is that this
discovery of heaven on earth will make heaven after death
more
beautiful for us; but my point is that the Master Degree
has nothing
to do with things after death - its teaching is to bring
heaven nearer
on earth.
After this manner I have come to interpret the Master
Degree. In
my paper, "Freemasonry in the Netherlands," THE
MASTER
MASON, February, 1924, I mentioned a small book, edited
some
months ago by the board of Grand Officers in Holland to
prepare a
review of the ritual. Rearranging some words of that
paper, we find
the Master Degree understood as follows: "The
solution of the
little self, in the sense of self-surrender,
self-dedication, and self-
forgetfulness, leads to the final purpose in Masonry and
all human
beings - that out of multitude Unity is born."
May every initiation of a candidate give something of what
is the
true meaning of this Degree, and may we do our utmost, as
far as
in us lies, to restore and interpret its meaning in our
rituals. For, to
my mind, nothing is so badly needed in these times of
profound
darkness as good Master Masons - Masters in truth as well
as in
title; and not men who are only good profanes, who are
blind
leaders in a blind world!
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