Specialis Procer Lodge U. D. held its stated meeting tonight. Our Lodge is unique in that we strive to hold very short stated meetings (45 minutes including the ritual opening and closing) and then adjourn to a restaurant for a Festive Board.
Tonight we had a smaller than usual group but there was a lot going on Masonically and people had other committments.
We still had a great group there and the restaurant was supurb. Baratta's Restaurant is on the South Side of Des Moines
Some of these pictures are not the greatest but the dinner and social time were excellent. I was the one presenting the paper and I presented on Masonry as an Allegory. I enjoyed putting it together and the Brothers were attentive.The Restaurant was really the best place we have had our Festive Board in my opinion. We had a private room, a great waitress and my steak was wonderful (as were the onion rings, potatoes au gratin, wine, salad, before dinner drink and just the whole meal.)
We were able to order off the menu and had separate checks. It worked out beautifully because I did not have to collect the money and pay the bill.
One neat thing was that earlier tonight I ran inot a man attending a wedding rehersal at the Scottish Rite Temple and he is interested in joining the Masons.
You know you have to express an interest in joining. We have a bumper sticker which says 2B1ASK1 - Meaning to be one Ask one. I am not supposed to solicit membership in the Lodge but I have never seen anything wrong in saying, "Are you a Mason?" If the answer is negative I usually respond by why not and are you interested? I have gotten several Masons that way and most of them are glad they have joined.
You can see that we sat around and visited tonight. We got to the restaurant about 7:30 and left around 10:00. It was a wonderful time sitting and discussing Masonic things. Everyone contributed and seemed to enjoy themselves. I know I did.
We laughed and really had a good time. It is what Kurt and Timothy and I envisioned when we first started talking about starting this Lodge of Restoration. I have a feeling that this is what Masonry was about when it was first started in the Middle Ages. It is really what I have been missing in Masonry and I am pleased to have had my paper so well received. If you would like to read it let me know and I will send it to you.
Here is the paper I presented.
Masonry as an Allegory.
Presented by Jay Cole Simser, P.M.
September 26, 2008Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.
No one seriously claims that all of the stories in the Craft degrees of Masonry are meant to be history. There are many holes in the stories. Instead they are meant as an experience to alter the initiate and change him. The lessons in all of the various Masonic rituals are there to cause a person to think and to reflect upon and hopefully to discover something hidden within himself which will result in his becoming a better person because he has participated in the process of initiation.
Indeed, many of the stories in the Bible itself should be considered as allegory. They are not meant to be historical but to have deeper meaning for the “initiated.” If you merely read the Bible as a historical narrative, and there are people who do that, you will be disappointed. But if you read it as a metaphor and let the lessons permeate your being, you can have a much deeper experience.
David Teubner writing in “The Bible as Allegory” says; “The Ancients (for example, the Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, the ancient Americans) knew the allegories very well and embedded their esoteric knowledge into narratives for safekeeping. The written language had yet to be systematized, thus a narrative was an excellent way to communicate to the culture at large the beliefs of the shamans or the priests.”
He continues later in his essay:
“The Biblical allegory describes our life as a journey (or a sojourning in a strange land). As stated above, this land was symbolized as Egypt. The Promised Land (remembrance and peace) was the goal of human existence. Atonement (which means at-one-ment) was deeply desired by Israel in the biblical allegory and by most people even to this day.
The allegory of the Bible says, in essence, that we are incarnate pieces of the divine, sown in flesh in hope of a promise, yet we live in the realm of the material world, i.e., Egypt.”
Masonry is often described as “veiled in Allegory.” We find in one of the Short Talk Bulletins, for instance:
“In Masonry, the sequence of the three degrees is itself allegorical, and represents the course of human existence. In like manner, the building of the Temple prefigures the erection of our moral edifice. Of cardinal importance is the Traditional History of the Third Degree. Because it is an allegory its truth does not reside in its factual narrative. The literal minded can always find flaws in it. For example, how came "those secrets" to be lost at the death of our Grand Master? There were, after all, two other Grand Masters who presumably knew them. The truth of the story is rather to be sought in the moral lesson it intends to teach.
The words "veiled in allegory" imply that some of the truths of Masonry are concealed from the uninitiated, but that they can be discovered by one who is privileged to join. It takes practice to learn how to recognize and appreciate symbol and allegory. Only through sincere, intelligent, and sustained effort, reinforced by imaginative and emotional sensitivity, can the reward be reaped.”
The story of the building of King Solomon’s Temple as told in the Masonic Ritual is not meant to be fact. Indeed the Temple of King Solomon, if it ever existed, is in itself an Allegory. It symbolizes the place where the God dwells. In the Holy of Holies or Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple – the center, if you will, of the Temple, there we find the Shekhinah.
The Shekhinah refers to a dwelling or settling in a special sense, a dwelling or settling of divine presence, to the effect that, when one is in proximity to the Shekhinah, the connection to God is more readily perceivable. It was here that, once a year, the Jewish High Priest would enter and whisper the name of God. (In the ancient times knowing and uttering the true name gave you power with God.) He was attached to a cable-tow so that if something happened while he was inside performing this sacred duty he could be pulled from the room thus keeping it from being polluted by having someone not sanctified to enter into it.
It is written there was a two-leaved door between the inner room and the Holy of Holies overlaid with gold and a veil of blue purple and crimson and fine linen. It had no windows
Even the reason for the color scheme of the veil was symbolic. In Jewish tradition, blue represented the heavens, while red or crimson represented the earth. Purple, a combination of the two colors, represents a meeting of the heavens and the earth. Thus, purple can also be a representation of the Holy Messiah in Jewish and Christian traditions. One can thus conclude that the only way into the Holy of Holies (God's presence) is through the purple veil (the Messiah) – York Rite Masons know this to be an allegory used in the Chapter Royal Arch Degree.
Surrounding the outside of the Holy of Holies were storage rooms for sacred treasures. There was a section reserved as the dwelling place of the priests who were “closer to God” than the common people. In another court was the place where the people came to worship God. Is this perhaps an allegory for the human being? The outside is where we keep the profane. The closer we get to our heart (our Shekhinah) the more we realize the presence of the Divine in us.
The layout of Masonic Lodges is also based on the layout of King Solomon's Temple. Gates at the South, West and East sides of the Temple are also symbolic. A Candidate must seek admission by knocking on the door. Once he gains admission he affirms his belief in the Supreme Being and attends prayer. He travels to the three gates where he is examined to see if he is worthy to enter into the Temple.
The journey also corresponds to the path of the Sun as it travels from the East to the West with its meridian height in the South. There is much of Masonry that is related to Light. The Master’s exclamation “Let there be Light!” and the candidate’s search for Light, more light and further light are all allegorical statements. We seek the light of reason, faith and understanding, as represented by the three “Great Lights” (the Holy Bible (or VSL), Square and Compass) on the Altar. Do these symbols not represent the presence of God with us?
In the Third Degree Hiram Abif enters into the Sanctum Sanctorum or Holy of Holies of the Temple when he kneels at the Altar for prayer. Would this have really happened? I don’t think so. I doubt that any but the High Priest entered in that area. It does represent the candidate once again putting his trust in God and communing with the Divine in order to strengthen himself and gain inspiration.
The journey to meet the three Ruffians and his murder is also an allegory. One interpretation follows:
Albert Pike identified the three Brothers who are the greatest enemies of individual welfare and social progress as Kingcraft, Priestcraft, and the ignorant Mob-Mind. Together they conspire to destroy liberty, without which man can make no real progress.
The first ruffian strikes a blow at the throat, the seat of freedom of speech, and that is a mortal wound. The second stabs at the heart, the home of freedom of conscience, and that is well nigh fatal, since it puts out the last ray of Divine Light by which man is guided. The third of the foul plotters fells his victim dead with a blow to the brain, which is the throne of freedom of thought.
No lesson could be plainer; it is written upon every page of the past. If by apathy, neglect or stupidity we suffer free speech, free conscience, and free thought to be destroyed either by Kingcraft, Priestcraft or the Mob-Mind; or, by all three working together - for they are Brothers and usually go hand in hand - the Temple of God will be dark, there will be no designs upon the Trestleboard, and the result will be idleness, confusion and chaos. It is a parable of history - a picture of many an age in the past of which we read. For, where there is no light of Divine Vision, the Altar fire, or Altar of Life is extinguished. The people “perish” as the Bible tells us; literally they become a mob, which is only another way of saying the same thing. There are no designs on the Trestleboard; that is, no leadership, - as in Russia today, where the herd-mind runs wild and runs red. Chaos comes again, inevitably so when all the lights are blown out, and the people are like ignorant armies that clash by night.
Of the three Ruffians, the most terrible, the most ruthless, the most brutal is the ignorant Mob-Mind. No tyrant, no priest can reduce a nation to slavery and control it until it is lost in the darkness of ignorance. By ignorance we mean not merely lack of knowledge, but the state of mind in which men refuse, or are afraid, to think, to reason, to enquire. When “The Great Freedoms of the Mind” go, everything is lost!.
After this manner Pike expounded the meaning of the three Ruffians who rob themselves, as they rob their fellow craftsmen, of the most precious secret of personal and social life. A secret, let it be added, which cannot be extorted, but is only won when we are worthy to receive it and have the wit and courage to keep it. For, oddly enough, we cannot have real liberty until we are ready for it, and can only become worthy of it by seeking and striving for it.
But some of us go further, and find the same three Ruffians nearer home - hiding in our own hearts. And naturally so, because society is only the individual writ larger; and what men are together is determined by what each is by himself. If we know who the ruffians really are, we have only to ask; what three things waylay each of us, destroy character, and if they have their way either slay us or turn us into ruffians? Why do we do evil and mar the Temple of God in us? Three great Greek thinkers searched until they found the three causes of sin in the heart of man. In other words, they hunted in the mountains of the mind until they found the Ruffians. Socrates said that the chief ruffian is ignorance - that is, no man in his right mind does evil unless he is so blinded by ignorance that he does see the right. No man, he said, seeing good and evil side by side, will choose evil unless he is too blind to see its results. An enlightened self-interest would stop him. Therefore, his remedy for the ills of life is knowledge - more light, and a clearer insight. Even so, said Plato; it is all true as far as it goes. But the fact is that men do see right and wrong clearly, and yet in a dark mood they do wrong in spite of knowledge. When the mind is calm and clear, the right is plain, but a storm of passion stirs up sediments in the bottom of the mind, and it is so cloudy that clear vision fails. The life of a man is like driving a team of horses, one tame and the other wild. So long as the wild horse is held firmly all goes well. But, alas, often enough, the wild horse gets loose and there is a run-away and a wreck.
{…}
Great thinkers capture the Ruffians, hiding somewhere in their own minds. It means much to have them brought before us for judgment, and happy is the man who is wise enough to take them outside the city of his mind and execute them. Nothing else, or less, will do. To show them any mercy is to invite misery and disaster. They are ruthless, and must be dealt with ruthlessly and at once. If we parley with them, if we soften toward them, we our-selves may be turned into Ruffians. Good but foolish Fellowcrafts came near being intrigued into a hideous crime. "If thy right eye offend, pluck it out," said the greatest of Teachers. Only a celestial surgery will save the whole body from infection and moral rot. We dare not make terms with evil, else it will dictate terms to us before we are aware of it.
One does not have to break the head of a Brother in order to be a Ruffian. One can break a heart. One can break his home. One can slay his good name. The amount of polite and refined ruffianism that goes on about us every day is appalling. Watchfulness is wisdom. Only a mind well tiled, with a faithful inner guard ever at his post, may hope to keep the ruffian spirit out of his heart, mind and soul. No wise man dare be careless or take any chances with the thought, feelings and motives he admits into the Lodge of the mind, whereof he is Master.
So let us live, watch and work, until Death, the last Ruffian, whom none can escape, lays us low, assured that even the dark, dumb hour, which brings a dreamless sleep about our couch, will not be able to keep us from the face of God, whose strong grip will free us and lift us out of shadows into the Light; out of dim phantoms into the Life Eternal that cannot die.
I can offer only one more caution. None of these interpretations comes to mind when you merely memorize Ritual, as important as that may be. It comes through study and thinking and watching and learning. The Mason must master his own passions. He must study and learn to know himself. He must study the allegory within himself, which is Freemasonry, learn the stories and interpret them for himself. He may not come to the same conclusions as his Brother Masons for Masonry is an individual science. Each must come to his own conclusion. This is why Masonry must truly be a life-long study.
(http://www.masonicworld.com/education/files/artoct02/ruffians.htm)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Solomon)
(http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/symbolism_the_hiramic_legend_and_the_masters_word.htm)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Solomon)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekinah)
(http://www.la-mason.com/stb53.htm)
(http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/allegory.html)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory)
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