Blessed Night, Loves 😊

I Pray All Is Well With Everyone…And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion For Yourselves And Everyone Else…All Over The World. Since Love Is Both Powerful And Transformative – Feeling Love, Sharing Love, Being Love…Radiating Love All Throughout The Atmosphere; Let Us Spend Our Days Expressing The Love And Light Of Our “Mighty I AM Presence”, Often…Letting Love Lead The Day; By Thinking Thoughts Of Love For Everyone Everywhere All Over The World…And By Being The Love That God Intended When We Were Created. For In Constantly Expending Our Loving Energy Through Loving Expressions And Experiences – And Sharing Our Divine Love With Others; An Abundance Of Divine Power And Energy Is Activated Throughout The Earth…With More Than Enough Power To Consume All Negative Human Creation…And Defeat The Hordes Of Darkness! And Our Collective Love…Is That Power! Amen…

Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life…

And Y’all Be Love…

“…The Primitive Freemasonry of the ancients was instituted for the purpose of preserving that truth which had been originally communicated to the patriarchs, in all its integrity, and that the Spurious Masonry or the Mysteries, originated in the earnest need of the sages, and philosophers, and priests, to find again the same truth which had been lost by the surrounding multitudes. This same truth continued to be the object of the Temple Masonry, which was formed by a union of the Primitive, or Pure, and the Spurious systems. Lastly, I have endeavored to demonstrate that this truth related to the nature of God and the human soul. The search, then, after this truth, I suppose, to constitute the end and design of Speculative Masonry.

From the very commencement of his career, the aspirant is by significant symbols and expressive instructions directed to the acquisition of this divine truth; and the whole lesson, if not completed in its full extent, is at least well developed in the myths and legends of the Master’s Degree. God and the soul – the unity of the one and the immortality of the other – are the great truths, the search for which is to constitute the constant occupation of every Mason, and which, when found, are to become the chief cornerstone, or the stone of foundation of the spiritual temple – “the house not made with hands” – which he is engaged in erecting.

Now, this idea of a search after truth forms so prominent a part of the whole science of Freemasonry, that I conceive no better or more comprehensive answer could be given to the question, what is Freemasonry, than to say that it is a science which is engaged in the search after divine truth. But Freemasonry is eminently a system of symbolism, and all its instructions are conveyed in symbols. It is, therefore, to be supposed that so prominent and so prevailing an idea as this, one that constitutes, as I have said, the whole design of the institution and which may appropriately be adopted as the very definition of its science, could not with any consistency, be left without its particular symbol.

The WORD, therefore, I conceive to be the symbol of Divine Truth; and all its modifications – the loss, the substitution, and the recovery – are but component parts of the mythical symbol which represents a search after truth. How then, is this symbolism preserved? How is the whole history of this Word to be interpreted, so as to bear, in all its accidents of time, and place, and circumstance, a patent reference to the substantive idea that has been symbolized? The answers to these questions embrace what is, perhaps, the most intricate as well as most ingenious and interesting portion of the science of masonic symbolism. This symbolism may be interpreted, either in an application to a general or to a special sense. The general application will embrace the whole history of Freemasonry, from its inception to its consummation.

The search after the Word is an epitome of the intellectual and religious progress of the order, from the period when, by the dispersion at Babel, the multitudes were enshrouded in the profundity of a moral darkness where truth was apparently forever extinguished. The true name of God was lost; his true nature was not understood; the divine lessons imparted by our father Noah were no longer remembered; the ancient traditions were now corrupted; the ancient symbols were perverted. Truth was buried beneath the rubbish of Sabaism, and the idolatrous adoration of the sun and stars had taken the place of the olden worship of the true God. A moral darkness was now spread over the face of the earth, as a dense, impenetrable cloud, which obstructed the rays of the spiritual sun, and covered the people as with a gloomy pall of intellectual night.

But this night was not to last forever. A brighter dawn was to arise, and amidst all this gloom and darkness there were still to be found a few sages in whom the religious sentiment, working in them with powerful throes, sent forth manfully to seek after truth. There were, even in those days of intellectual and religious darkness, craftsmen who were willing to search for the Lost Word. And though they were unable to find it, their approximation to truth was so near, that the result of their search may well be symbolized by the Substitute Word.

It was among the idolatrous multitudes that the Word had been lost. It was among them that the Builder had been smitten, and that the works of the spiritual temple had been suspended; and so, losing at each successive stage of their decline, more and more of the true knowledge of God and of the pure religion which had originally been imparted by Noah, they finally arrived at gross materialism and idolatry, losing all sight of the divine existence.

Thus, it was that the truth – the Word – was said to have been lost; or, to apply the language of Hutchinson, modified in its reference to the time, “in this situation, it might well be said that the guide to heaven was lost, and the master of the works of righteousness was smitten. The nations had given themselves up to the grossest idolatry, and the service of the true God was effaced from the memory of those who had yielded themselves to the dominion of sin.”

And now it was among the philosophers and priests in the ancient Mysteries, or the spurious Freemasonry, that an anxiety to discover the truth led to the search for the Lost Word. These were the craftsmen who saw the fatal blow which had been given, who knew that the Word was now lost, but were willing to go forth, manfully and patiently, to seek its restoration. And there were the craftsmen who, failing to rescue it from the grave of oblivion into which it had fallen, by any efforts of their own incomplete knowledge, fell back upon the dim traditions which had been handed down from primeval times, and through their aid found a substitute for truth in their own philosophical religions.

Schmidtz, speaking of these Mysteries of the pagan world, calls them the remains of the ancient Pelasgian religion, and says that “the associations of persons for the purpose of celebrating them must therefore have been formed at the time when the overwhelming influence of the Hellenic religion began to gain the upper hand in Greece, and when persons who still entertained a reverence for the worship of former times united together, with the intention of preserving and upholding among themselves as much as possible of the religion of their forefathers.”

… The symbolism of Solomon’s temple…is viewed as a symbol of that spiritual temple formed by the aggregation of the whole order, and in which each mason is considered as a stone; and, in an individual or special sense, the same temple is considered as a type of that spiritual temple which each mason is directed to erect in his heart. Now, in this special or individual interpretation, the Word, with its accompanying myth of a loss, a substitute, and a recovery, becomes a symbol of the personal progress of a candidate from his first initiation to the completion of his course, when he receives a full development of the Mysteries.

The aspirant enters on this search after truth, as an Entered Apprentice, in darkness, seeking for light – the light of wisdom, the light of truth, the light symbolized by the Word. For this important task, upon which he starts forth gropingly, falteringly, doubtingly, in want and in weakness, he is prepared by a purification of the heart, and is invested with a first substitute for the true Word, which, like the pillar that went before the Israelites in the wilderness, is to guide him onwards in his weary journey. He is directed to take, as a staff and scrip for his journey, all those virtues which expand the heart and dignify the soul. Secrecy, obedience, humility, trust in God, purity of conscience, economy of time, are all inculcated by impressive types and symbols, which connect the first degree with the period of youth.

And then, next in the degree of Fellow Craft, he fairly enters upon his journey. Youth has now passed, and manhood has come on. New duties and increased obligations press upon the individual. The thinking and working stage of life is here symbolized. Science is to be cultivated; wisdom is to be acquired; the lost Word – divine truth – is still to be sought for. But even yet it is not to be found.

And now the Master Mason comes, with all the symbolism around him of old age – trials, sufferings, death. And here, too, the aspirant, pressing onward, always onward, still cries aloud for, “light, more light.” The search is almost over, but the lesson, humiliating to human nature, is to be taught, that in this life, gloomy and dark, earthly and carnal, pure truth has no abiding place; and contented with a substitute, and to that second temple of eternal life, for that true Word, that divine Truth, which will teach us all that we shall ever learn of God and his emanation, the human soul.

So, the Master Mason, receiving this substitute for the lost Word, waits with patience for the time when it shall be found, and perfect wisdom shall be attained. But work as we will, this symbolic Word – this knowledge of divine Truth – is never thoroughly attained in this life, or in its symbol, the Master Mason’s Lodge. The corruptions of mortality, which encumber and cloud the human intellect, hide it as with a thick veil, from mortal eyes. It is only, as I have just said, beyond the tomb, and when released from the earthly burden of life, that man is capable of fully receiving and appreciating the revelation.

Hence, then, when we speak of the recovery of the Word, in that higher degree which is a supplement to Ancient Craft Masonry, we intimate that that sublime portion of the masonic system is a symbolic representation of the state after death. For it is only after the decay and fall of this temple of life which, as masons, we have been building, that from its ruins deep beneath its foundations and in the profound abyss of the grave, we find that divine truth.”

The Symbolism of Freemasonry, by Albert G. Mackey, 1882